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NATURE  •  AND- 
CHARACTER.AT. 

GRANITE.  BAY. 


BY  DanielA  .Goodsell. 


— 


NEW  YORK:  EATON  &  MAINS 

CINCINNATI:  JENNINGS  St  PTE. 

MDCCCCI 


Copyright  by 

EATON  &  MAINS, 

1901. 


DEDICATION 

To  my  Wife  and  Children 

who  know  the  facts  I  herein  set  down,  and  knew 

the  characters  herein  described,  and  who 

have  learned  with  me  to  love 

Granite  Bay  better  than  any 

other  spot  on  earth. 


Preface 

HIS  book  has  been  written  a 
thousand  miles  from  the 
scenes  it  describes.  It  has 
been  justified  to  the  writer, 
by  the  pleasure  of  living  over  again  the 
summer  life  under  winter  skies,  and  by 
that  sense  of  "outing  "  which  one  enjoys 
when  engaged  on  matters  remotely  con- 
nected with  one's  burdens  and  vocation. 
Because  remotely  connected  I  have 
hesitated  to  print  it.  But  having  found 
some  of  the  sketches  of  character  re- 
ceived with  interest  when  read  to  several 
large  gatherings,  I  hope  that  others  will 
find  them  not  uninteresting  in  print. 

The  book  has  not,  however,  been  writ- 
ten   as   an    amusement    chiefly.     I    have 


hoped  that  it  might  find  warrant  by  some 
measure  of  success  in  meeting  these 
aims,  namely: 

To  show  that  a  half  acre  near  a  large 
city  may  become  of  absorbing  interest 
and  intellectual  profit  to  any  one  who  has 
ordinary  powers  of  observation,  small  sci- 
entific knowledge,  and  limited  time. 

To  demonstrate  to  my  younger  breth- 
ren in  the  Christian  ministry  that  it  is 
well  to  study  and  affiliate  with  the  plain- 
est people  among  whom  we  live;  these, 
and  not  the  favored,  possessing  chiefly 
the  characteristics  which  reward  study, 
namely,  originality,  unique  experience, 
true  and  self-sacrificing  sympathy,  and 
the  joys  of  growth  and  conquest. 

In  nothing  has  imagination  added  to 
the  characters  or  scenes  herein  sketched, 
nor  is  the  sequence  of  events  anywhere 
changed  to  heighten  interest.  The  stud- 
ies of  character  are  true  sketches  of  men 
and  women  I  know,  or  have  known,  for 
some  are  dead. 


The  chapter  on  "Mental  Contents  of 
an  Egg  "  and  a  very  few  of  the  observa- 
tions on  animal  life  appeared  some  years 
ago  in  The  Christian  Advocate  of  New 
York.  The  remainder  here  appear  for 
the  first  time. 

No  originality  is  claimed  for  the  stud- 
ies in  natural  history  herein  set  down. 
They  only  confirm  the  observations  of 
men  of  greater  knowledge,  wider  experi- 
ence, and  ampler  opportunity.  It  may  be, 
however,  that  such  facts  have  not  before 
been  gathered  from  so  small  an  area;  of 
this,  however,  I  can  have  no  assurance. 

.  Such  as  they  are,  they  have  greatly 
added  to  my  conviction  of  the  unity  of 
the  kingdom  of  God,  and  of  the  mystery 
of  life  and  energy. 

D.  A.  Goodsell. 


Contents 


NATURE 

CHAPTER  I 


THE   DRAWING   OF  GRANITE  BAY 

Location,  Dimensions,  Geology.  The  Carving  Frost. 
Cliff  Growths.  The  Making  of  Peninsulas.  Charac- 
teristic Trees,  Shrubs,  Vines,  and  Wild  Flowers.  Au- 
tumn Tints.  A  Racing  River.  Indian  Kitchen  Middens. 
A  Kindly  Screen.  Sun-Heated  Rock  Masses.  The 
Haunt  of  Many  Birds  and  Small  Animals.  The  Abun- 
dance of  the  Sea.  The  Awakening  in  Spring.  The 
Chapel  Bell.     Alive  at  Last i 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  DRAWING  OF  granite  bay—  Continued 

Surface  Attractions.  Deeper  Joys.  The  Ways  of 
Sea  Lovers.  The  Sea  as  a  Stimulus  to  Expression.  A 
Vastness  Other  than  Stellar.  Contrasted  with  Moun- 
tains and  Great  Cities.  The  Sea  Restful.  The  Sea  a 
Bond.  The  Sea  a  Mother  of  Surprises.  Species  Out 
of  Place.  The  Barracouta.  The  Lumpsucker.  Trop- 
ical Sea  Turtles 9 


CHAPTER  III 
the  drawing  of  granite  bay — Continued 
Sea  Fishermen.  Certain  Variety.  The  Secret  of 
Fascination.  The  Behavior  of  Different  Fish.  The 
Fisherman  s  Gifts.  Fishing  by  Reminiscence.  A  Pro- 
cession of  Smacks.  Survival  of  the  Fittest.  The  Sea  a 
Spur  to  the  Imagination.  The  Surface  and  the  Depths. 
The  Coal  Tows 17 

CHAPTER  IV 
the  drawing  OF  granite  bay — Continued 
Aspects  of  the  Bay.  The  Moon  wake  a  Personal 
Matter.  A  Problem  for  Mathematicians.  Ripple  Belts 
and  Calm  Belts.  Fish  Rips.  Prophetic  Signs.  The 
Amiability  of  the  Sea.  The  Behavior  of  the  Winds. 
Waving  Ground.  Two  Hurricanes  and  What  Hap- 
pened. The  Massing  of  the  Schooners.  The  Brauty 
of  Fog  and  Mist.     Its  Dangers 27 

CHAPTER  V 
the  drawing  OF  granite  BAY—  Continued 
The  Sweep  of  a  Thunderstorm.  How  Seamen  Meas- 
ure Its  Force.  Photographing  Lightning.  An  Old  Con- 
troversy Concerning  the  Moon.  A  Study  of  Southwest 
Winds.  Marine  Effects  and  the  South  Wind.  A  Low 
Tide  Roar.  Drift  Treasures.  Gathering  Rockweed, 
and  Its  Uses 36 

CHAPTER  VI 
the  drawing  of  granite  bay —  Continued 
The  Coming  of  Wild  Ducks.  Hunting  Dangers. 
Acres  of  Coots  and  Oldwives.  The  Speed  of  a  Wild 
Duck.  Wild  Birds  Know  their  Friends.  A  Great  De- 
parture. Pensioners  and  Their  Ways.  Loons  or  Great 
Northern  Divers.     Puffins,  Auks,  and  Snowy  Owls.     An 

Aspiration 47 

x 


CHAPTER  VII 

MENTAL  CONTENTS   OF   AN   EGG 

A  Sea  Gull's  Egg  Chosen.  Where  Found.  Condi- 
tions of  Investigation.  The  Gull  Travels  Three  Hun- 
dred Miles.  Behavior  On  the  Way.  Instinct  in  Hid- 
ing. Enormous  Appetite.  Development  of  Affection  and 
Companionship.  Knowledge  of  Suitable  Food.  His 
Habit  of  Dancing,  and  the  Reason.  The  Natural  Notes 
of  a  Laughing  Gull.  Water  over  Depth.  The  Dressing 
of  His  Feathers.  Love  of  Play  and  Dramatic  Instincts. 
Testing  the  Gull  for  Various  Emotions.  Maturity  De- 
velops Unamiable  but  Interesting  Traits.  The  Gull  and 
a  Small  Boy.  The  Gull  and  a  Cat.  Was  it  Reason? 
How  They  Eat  Shellfish.  War  on  Rats.  His  Sad  Fate. 
A  Bit  of  Philosophy 54 

CHAPTER   VIII 

THE   MIND   OF   A    DOG 

A  Great  Transition.  The  Sociable  Spirit.  The  Se- 
cret of  the  Dog.  "  Blood  will  tell."  Development  of 
Physical  Characteristics.  What  He  Learned.  Native 
Gifts  of  Patience  and  Dignity.  Holes  in  the  Ground. 
Behavior  in  the  House.  Ecstasy  in  Recognition.  A 
Natural  Gymnast.  Craft  to  Get  His  Wishes.  Distin- 
guishes between  Different  Preparations.  An  Interpreter 
of  Sentences.  A  Valuable  Call  Boy.  Intelligence  as  to 
Hours  and  Habits.  The  Growth  of  Courage.  My 
Mistake  as  to  His  Gifts.  Why  No  Dog  Attacked  Him. 
A  Greyhound's  Method  of  Fighting.  Contempt  for  a 
Collie.  Love  of  Bathing.  The  Dog's  Sense  of  Propri- 
etorship. Recognition  of  Boundaries.  An  Act  of  Warn- 
ing and  of  Justice.     A  Pathetic  Ending 71 

xi 


CHAPTER  IX 

SUBHUMAN   NEIGHBORS 

An  Eminent  Rascal.  The  Kingbird  and  His  Ways. 
A  Seaside  Tragedy.  The  Purple  Grackle.  Hated 
of  Other  Birds.  The  Robin  the  Most  Timid  of  the 
Thrushes.  Squirrels  near  a  Nest.  The  Grackle  and  His 
Nest  Hiding.  The  Mourning  Dove  and  Her  Tricks. 
The  Humming  Bird,  Its  Nest  and  Ways.  The  Waxwing, 
or  Cedar  Bird.  The  Blue  Jay  a  Handsome  Scamp. 
The  Flicker  and  the  Woodpeckers.  The  Song  Sparrow 
and  His  Cousins.  Swallows  and  Martins.  A  Tricky 
Youngster.  An  Old  Superstition.  The  Warblers.  The 
American  Canary.  The  House  Wren.  A  Nest  in  a  Queer 
Place.     The  Whip-poor-will.     The  Kingfisher 86 

CHAPTER  X 

subhuman  neighbors—  Continued 
The  Burial  of  a  Dead  Bird.  Certain  Owls  and  Their 
Behavior.  A  Visit  from  Shore  Larks.  Herons  and 
Cranes.  Snakes  and  Balls  of  Snakes — Certain  Garter 
Snakes.  A  Neighborly  Black  Snake.  The  Green  Sum- 
mer Snake.  "  Wipers."  Turtles  and  Tortoises.  An 
Old  Settler.  A  Tragedy  Revealed.  Flying  Squirrels 
and  a  Good  Bed.  The  True  Aeroplane.  The  Chip- 
munk is  Play  Incarnate.  A  Visit  from  Minks.  Not 
Loved  by  Fishermen.  Tenacity  of  Hold.  The  Drawing 
of  the  Electric  Light.  Polyphemus.  Cecropia  and 
Death's  Head.  The  Coming  into  View  of  the  Cicada. 
How  It  Changed  Its  Form  and  Skin.  How  It  makes  Its 
Characteristic  Note.  Who  Knows  How  Long  It  Stays 
under  Ground  ?  Dragon  Flies,  Their  Uses  and  Harmless- 
ness.  A  Storm  of  Dragon  Flies.  A  Winged  Stomach. 
Hornets  and  Their  Nests.  Not  Bad  Neighbors.  Bum- 
blebees   Who    Bore   Wood   and   Tunnel    Earth.     The 

Auger  of  a  Borer ioo 

xii 


CHAPTER  XI 

REMNANTS 

The  Charm  of  Country  Life.  The  Value  of  Eyes. 
The  True  Point  of  View.  The  Mimicry  of  Human 
Life.  War  among  the  Ants.  A  "  Short,  Sharp,  Deci- 
sive "  Battle.  Mountain  Climbing  by  a  Toad.  Toads  Not 
Voiceless.  "And  he  fell  into  a  pit."  Pass  to  Human 
Neighbors.  A  Twilight  Hour.  The  Post  Office  and 
Young  People.  The  Joy  of  Conquest  in  Clearing  and 
Building.  The  Accumulation  of  Memories.  Some 
Who  Have  Been  with  Us.  The  Arms  of  Granite  Bay. 
The  Routine  of  a  Day.  Taps  from  the  Rock.  A  Quo- 
tation from  Bryant JI3 


CHARACTER 

CHAPTER  XII 

THE   FISHERMAN 127 

CHAPTER   XIII 

THE  GIANT I41 

CHAPTER  XIV 

*•  SUGAR  " J53 

CHAPTER   XV 

OUR  GENIUS io4 

CHAPTER  XVI 

THE   HERMIT 173 

CHAPTER  XVII 

THE    MYSTERY I^S 

CHAPTER  XVIII 

THE  SILENT   MAN . 1 99 

CHAPTER  XIX 

THE   DOORKEEPER 2I1 

xiii 


Illustrations 

FACING 
PAGE 

A  Gale  from  the  South .«. .  Frontispiece. 

Great  Masses  of   Rock. ..  Photo  by  Maide  Johnson.  4 

Fishing  by  Deputy "  Buel  Goodsell. .  20 

The  Wooded  Aisle "  Maide  Johnson.  28 

The  End  of  the  Park. . .  "  Maide  Johnson.  36 

After  the  Hurricane....  *'  Buel  Goodsell..  47 

Gentleman  Gad "  Buel  Goodsell. .  71 

Gad  and  Frisk "  Clai  a  Corey ....  84 

Good-bye  to  the  Season.  "  Buel  Goodsell . .  113 

The  Cedar  Gate "  Maide  Johnson.  127 

The  Fisherman's  Fleet..  "  Maide  Johnson.  135 

The  Captains "  D.  A.  Goodsell..  141 

The  Giant "         Unknown 147 

"Sugar." "         Unknown 153 

The  Rushing  River "  Maide  Johnson.  157 

Our  Genius "  Buel  Goodsell. .  164 

The  Winter  Rest  of  the 

Boats "  D.  A.  Goodsell.  171 

The  Hermit "  Buel  Goodsell. .  173 

The  Hermit's  Thicket. ..  "  Maide  Johnson.  179 

The  Doorkeeper "  D.  A.  Goodsell..  211 

The  Wire  Bridge "  Maide  Johnson.  215 

The   Children   at   the 

Doorkeeper's "  D.  A.  Goodsell..  219 

xv 


"To  live  content  with  small  means,  to  seek  elegance 
rather  than  luxury,  refinement  rather  than  fashion  ; 
to  bear  all  cheerfully,  do  all  bravely,  to  listen  to  stars 
and  birds,  to  babes  and  sages  with  operi  heart,  to  study 
hard,  think  quietly,  act  frankly,  speak  gently ;  in  a 
word,  to  let  the  spiritual,  unbidden  and  unseen,  grow 
up  through  the  common  —  this  is  to  be  my  symphony!" 

— W.  H.  ClIANNING 


NATURE  AT  GRANITE  BAY 

(2) 


THE    DRAWING    OF    GRANITE    BAY 


ESS  than  a  hundred 
miles  from  New  York 
Granite  Bay  opens 
into  the  greatest 
width  of  Long  Island 
Sound.  Near  a  large 
city,  knowing  it  scant- 
ily, it  has  been,  until 
just  now,  accessible  only  by  a  long  aisle 
of  forest  and  hilly  road.  The  trolley 
car  has  found  it  at  last,  but  fortunately 
only  touches  it  and  is  gone. 

The  bay  is  less  than  a  mile  wide,  and 
still  less  from  its  beach  to  the  open 
waters  of  Long  Island  Sound  southward. 
On  fairest  days  the  gravel  cliffs  of  Long 
Island  are  seen,  and  are  not  unlike,  in 
occasional  glimpses,  the  cliffs  of  Dover 
from  Calais.  Eastward  and  southeast- 
ward the  clearest  air  raises  no  shore. 
The  woods  creep  to  the  edge  of  the 
cliffs.     Stunted  pines  and  hemlocks  hang 


over  the  sea.  As  elsewhere  in  New  Eng- 
land the  east  wind  and  its  ally  frost 
have  carved  the  eastern  faces  of  all 
rocks  into  steepness  and  perpendicu- 
larity. Ages  of  attrition  have  cut  out 
the  softer  spots,  indenting  the  shore 
with  charming  coves,  walled  inland  with 
lichen-covered  rocks  and  with  beaches  of 
pinkish  sand.  The  juniper  and  whortle- 
berry nestle  in  the  fissures.  The  bay  is 
flanked  by  islands — some  true  islands, 
yet  others  have  finished  their  course  as 
islands.  The  little  channels  landward, 
silted  in,  are  now  either  salt  meadows  or 
woods,  rich  in  oaks,  pines,  and  cedars, 
with  occasional  hemlocks,  birches,  and 
ironwood.  The  persimmon  can  be  found 
here  by  the  side  of  the  tulip  and  the 
dogwood.  Their  tops  are  tented  with 
grapevines  and  Virginia  creeper.  Nor 
is  the  poison  ivy — that  unamiable  cousin 
of  the  woodbine — wanting.  Underneath 
are  patches  of  the  partridge  berry, 
belted  with  gray  moss,  through  which 
protrude,  in  season,  hepaticas,  anem- 
ones, saxifrage,  and  Solomon's  Seal, 
followed,  as  the  spring  passes  into  early 
summer,  by  a  wealth  of  columbine. 


In  soggy  places  Jack  is  found  in  his 
Pulpit,  and  the  Dutchman's  Breeches 
swing  in  the  wind.  Here  also  a  score  of 
ferns  lift  their  crosiers  and  unroll  into 
the  delicate  maidenhair  and  silver  leaf, 
or  the  stalwart  brake.  Here  also  the 
summer  children  trip  over  the  dewberry 
vines,  or  are  caught  by  the  thorns  of  the 
raspberry,  the  blackberry,  or  the  bar- 
berry. Every  sunbright  spot  is  later  on 
gilded  with  golden-rod  or  purpled  by 
wild  aster.  The  sweet  and  fragrant 
clover,  loved  of  Indians  for  baskets, 
scents  the  air. 

Autumn  here  splashes  her  most  gor- 
geous colors.  Tree  tops  glow  with  the 
blaze  of  the  woodbine.  The  maples  lend 
their  greens,  yellows,  and  reds.  The 
sumach  puts  on  its  cardinal's  hat.  Later 
the  oaks  pass  from  vermilion  to  sienna 
and  terra  cotta.  Islands  and  pinnacles 
of  evergreen  protrude  from  a  ruddy  sea, 
and  the  affluent  color  scheme  is  enriched 
by  the  olive  greens  of  ancient  cedars. 

Behind     these    islands    a    river    races 

southward     between     salt     marshes    and 

granite  walls.      Once  it  followed  a  dozen 

channels  between   the    islands.      Now  it 

3 


reaches  the  sea  a  mile  from  its  former 
mouths,  after  raging  into  foam  over 
sunken  bowlders  and  drongs  of  rock. 

On  both  banks  one  may  find  under- 
neath the  rich  grass  the  kitchen  middens 
of  the  long-gone  Indians.  The  sod  is 
undergirded  by  deep  beds  of  shells.  Pa- 
tience finds  arrowheads,  stone  hatchets, 
and  rarely  a  skull  or  thigh  bone. 

Here  too  are  records  of  world  build- 
ing. The  rocks  and  bowlders  are  gran- 
itic, with  veins  of  trap  and  quartz. 
Behind  the  seaward  islands  a  noble  cliff 
rises,  rich  in  ferns  and  various  in  tree, 
shrub,  and  flower. 

Nature  thus  kindly  screens  the  bay 
and  its  shores  from  the  icy  north  winds, 
and  grants  luxurious  and  late  growth. 
The  great  rock  masses  are  warmed  to 
the  heart  by  the  summer  sun,  and  hold 
the  winter  back  until  late  December;  but 
equally,  when  chilled,   delay  the  spring. 

Surely  the  birds  love  this  spot,  coming 
early  and  staying  late.  The  bluebird 
sings  in  February,  the  robin  but  a  little 
after.  One  may  find,  if  keen  of  quest, 
and  within  an  acre's  space,  the  nest  of  the 
purple   grackle,    the   brown    thrush,    the 

4 


robin,  the  catbird,  humming  bird,  song 
sparrow,  chipping  sparrow,  wren,  flicker, 
woodpecker,  mourning  dove,  waxwing, 
starling,  phebe,  and  kingfisher.  The 
cedar  thickets  are  so  dense  and  rich  in 
berries  that  some  brave  robins  linger  in 
midwinter.  When  the  last  cottager  has 
returned  to  city  walls  and  city  cares, 
Bunny,  the  brown  rabbit,  whisks  under 
the  verandas  ;  the  partridge  whirs  by  the 
kitchen  door  ;  into  the  late  autumn  the 
minks  steal  the  net-entangled  fish.  When 
ice  is  in  the  bay  and  the  "  abounding 
charity  of  the  snow"  on  the  land,  the 
winter  visitor  has  found  the  flying  squir- 
rel nesting  in  his  bed  and  wriggling  into 
life  with  the  unexpected  warmth. 

Here  also  is  the  abundance  of  the  sea. 
The  passing  of  the  Indians  has  not  ban- 
ished the  oyster  from  the  rocks,  the  soft 
clam  from  the  river,  the  quohog  from  the 
bay.  The  king  crab  buries  his  eggs  on 
the  hot  beach  of  June,  and  the  blue  crab 
in  the  warm  mud  of  August.  In  May 
the  lobster  lurks  in  the  fissures  of  the  sea- 
ward rocks.  In  the  frosty  spring  the 
fykes  entrap  the  flounder  and  the  frostfish, 
and,  in  the  autumn,  the  blackfish,  striped 
5 


bass,  and  hake.  A  mighty  pound  farther 
out  begins  its  catch  in  April  with  shad, 
and  the  later  months  bring  in  sea  bass, 
weakfish,  and  the  toothsome  but  savage 
bluefish. 

In  early  April  the  Granite  Bay  folk 
wake  from  winter's  torpidity.  The  sugar 
snows  are  not  melted  before  some  cot- 
tager appears  to  see  if  storms  have  spared 
his  home.  Those  who  have  wintered  at 
the  bay  now  hunger  for  work,  except 
some  who  seem  to  be  able  to  live  without 
money  and  without  work.  The  groceries 
begin  to  stock  up.  The  butcher  in- 
creases his  trips  from  once  a  week  to 
thrice.  The  fykes  are  mended,  rehooped, 
and  planted  near  the  ledges.  Lobster 
pots  are  piled  by  the  beach  and  on  the 
sea  wall.  The  axes  thud  all  day,  piling 
up  kindling  wood  for  the  coming  cot- 
tager. Our  genius  inspects  and  paints 
the  scores  of  boats,  yachts,  and  launches 
in  his  care,  and  rests  himself  by  laying  a 
foundation  or  two,  blasting  rocks,  repair- 
ing plumbing,  and  putting  into  the  wa- 
ter a  score  of  rowboats  of  this  winter's 
building. 

By  May  those  to  whom  absence  from 


the  bay  means  absence  of  full  life  begin 
to  move  in.  The  stage  with  its  blind 
horses  rolls  lazily  to  Oldport,  returning 
full  of  eager  people  and  weighty  trunks. 
The  trolley  cars  multiply  in  number  and 
in  trips.  The  cycles  fly  through  the  long 
and  budding  forest.  The  Italian  staggers 
in  under  a  vast  basket  of  bananas.  The 
clam  diggers,  sunken  to  their  armpits, 
spade  up  the  river  bars.  The  smoke  of 
bonfires  obscures  the  cleaning  village 
The  florists  bring  their  fragrant  loads. 
Servants  come  to  put  in  order  the  houses, 
already  prim  with  new  paint. 

But  it  is  not  until  June,  with  its  perfect 
days,  that  Granite  Bay  is  wholly  awake. 
Then  one  may  see  merchants  of  widest 
enterprise,  manufacturers  of  world-known 
fame,  artists,  poets,  clergymen,  greeting 
each  other  by  the  sea  wall.  The  school 
vacation  crowds  the  shore  with  children 
and  the  bay  with  craft.  On  every  rock  a 
fisherman  sits.  A  line  of  rowboats  dances 
by  the  sea  wall.  The  osprey  dives  for  his 
dinner,  only  to  be  robbed  by  the  bald 
eagle.  A  hundred  times  a  day  the  king- 
fisher springs  his  rattle  ;  as  many  times 
the  kingbird  drives  off  the  crow.  No 
7 


large  steamer  vexes  these  waters,  no  train 
thunders  at  our  doors.  Uncursed  by  the 
saloon,  life  moves  on  in  neighborly  kind- 
ness. Childish  glee  is  unabashed  by  con- 
stable or  policeman.  The  bell  of  the 
chapel  calls  to  week-day  prayer  and  to 
Sabbath  worship.  The  electric  light,  gone 
for  the  winter,  is  flashed  on  before  the 
summer  solstice  and  punctuates  the  dark- 
ness of  our  wooded  roads.  The  float  and 
springboard  are  moored  off  the  sea  wall. 
Bathers  scream,  laugh,  and  dive. 
The  summer  has  come. 


II 


THE    DRAWING    OF    GRANITE    BAY 
Continued 

THOUSAND    feel    it   to 
one  who   asks  why. 
To  most  the  attrac- 
tion   is  in  the  cool- 
ing breezes,  the 
refreshment   of  the    sea 
bath,   the  joy  of  fishing.     These 
are     the    surface    delights    which 
draw  the  multitude  to  our  bay. 

But  those  who  have  summered  there 
for  years  feel  more,  very  much  more,  than 
these.  In  point  of  fact,  the  pleasures 
mentioned  are  only  a  very  small  part  of 
the  attraction  which  makes  such  feel 
that  those  days  are  to  be  endured  which 
are  not  spent  at  the  bay. 

Those  most  strongly  drawn  by  the  sea 
are  seldom  much  in  it  or  on  it,  but  pine  if 
not  near  it.  Such  spend  many  hours  in  one 
spot.  They  neither  read  nor  write,  but 
gaze  and  watch.  If  they  must  take  up 
9 


book  or  pen,  they  must  go  in  and  shut 
the  sea  out.  1  have  talked  with  many 
such  dreamers  and  have,  in  some  measure, 
understood  their  life.  Such  feel  that 
there  is  something  in  the  sea,  as  in  some 
great  personalities,  which  always  escapes 
expression.  Those  who  know  best  its 
literature,  the  poems  inspired  by  it,  the 
stories  of  life  on  it,  the  changes  of  his- 
tory through  great  sea  fights,  feel  more 
deeply  than  others  the  inadequacy  of 
description. 

Nevertheless  all  who  love  it  must  write 
of  it.  Like  other  great  loves,  it  must  be 
told.  It  is  too  mighty,  too  imperious,  to 
be  kept  to  oneself.  Income  being  so 
great,  it  must  find  outgo. 

So  I  write,  hoping  that  others  will  read 
into  my  lines  that  which  I  feel  but  cannot 
phrase. 

The  sea  gives  an  impression  of  vastness, 
and  that  at  hand,  within  comprehension, 
and  so  without  fatigue.  From  the  first 
gray  of   the    dawn   until   the   hour  when 

"  The  gaudy,  blabbing  but  remorseful  day 
Is  crept  into  the  bosom  of  the  sea  " 

it  grants  what  no  other  vastness  gives. 
The  star-sprinkled    heavens,   the  reaches 


of  telescopic  space,  daze  the  senses  and 
stun  the  mind.  Fatigue  follows  short 
sight  of  them.  The  time  element  comes 
in  to  add  to  the  burden  of  thinking.  If 
one  be  of  religious  turn,  space  and  dura- 
tion suggest  the  infinite  and  the  soul  is 
benumbed  and  shrunken  into  littleness. 
The  globes  have  swung  for  so  many  aeons. 
The  light  has  been  so  long  coming.  The 
suns  drag  into  their  blaze  so  many  in- 
choate planets.  The  orbits  cross  and 
recross  until  only  a  master  of  numbers 
can  extricate  any  one  from  the  many. 
Thoughts  of  collision,  changes  of  gravity, 
ice  belts  creeping  to  hot  equator,  and 
death  congealing  life  are  ever  with  him 
who  thinks  of  stellar  space.  The  moon 
shines  peacefully  only  to  those  who  do 
not  know  her  as  a  burned-out  cinder. 
An  astronomer  must  have  poise  beyond 
most  or  go  mad  with  the  unrest  of  the 
spaces,  times,  motions,  and  questions. 

The  mountains  are  more  restful.  They 
have  limits  when  highest  and  broadest. 
They  are  not  older  than  our  world.  Only 
here  and  there  are  the  world-building 
forces  at  work  in  them.  They  sit  broadly 
and  firmly  for  the  most  part.     Their  form 


does  not  change  in  centuries.  We  find 
them  where  our  fathers  found  them.  Their 
streams  issue  from  the  same  crevices. 
The  clouds,  the  winds,  tribes,  peoples, 
nations,  pass  by  them.  They  remain. 
Inappreciably,  rain,  frost,  ice,  wear  them, 
but  scores  of  years  alone  give  a  measure. 

But,  except  at  the  summit,  they  limit 
thought  as  they  bound  vision.  They  wall 
in  valleys,  engendering  a  strenuous,  nar- 
row, lonely  life.  They  separate  neighbors 
and  nation.  Man  conquers  them  by  vio- 
lence. Years,  drill,  dynamite,  are  need- 
ful weapons.  To  cross  one  must  have 
terraced  road,  switchback,  loop,  and 
tunnel.  There  is  ozone  in  their  air  and 
wine  on  their  heights.  There  is  pano- 
rama, but  not  detail. 

They  take  us  out  of  the  world,  sug- 
gesting nothing  of  home  or  human  inter- 
course. 

If  lofty,  they  breed  arctic  life  which 
climbs  in  summer  only  to  creep  down 
with  longer  nights.  They  know  little  of 
spring  or  autumn.  Of  themselves  they 
are  never  soft  and  gentle.  Mold  and 
forest  give  all  they  have  of  these  except 
that  granted  by  the  charity  of  mist.     Un- 


like  the  sea,  they  cannot  follow  the  tint 
of  the  sky.  They  may  be  ruddy,  but  only 
when  at  evening  some  eastward  cloud 
transmits  the  glory  of  sunset,  or  when 

"  Night's  candles  are  burnt  out,  and  jocund  day 
Stands  tiptoe  on  the  misty  mountain  tops." 

The  blessing  of  the  hills  is  stimulus. 
They  have  no  charity  for  wrecks,  but 
leave  them  frozen  and  unburied  on  their 
breasts. 

A  great  city  is  amusing,  teaching,  as- 
tonishing in  the  complication  of  its  life. 
It  draws  by  the  concentration  and  babel 
of  resource.  It  depresses  all  but  those 
whose  comfort  depends  on  little  things 
and  those  whose  good  is  evil.  It  is 
only  feebly  and  wastefully  reproductive. 
When  a  mother,  it  is  a  Moloch,  destroy- 
ing more  than  it  creates.  It  condenses 
vices  as  well  as  powers.  It  smothers 
prophets  and  chokes  devotion. 

Here  canyons  of  stone  reduce  the  fir- 
mament to  a  strip.  Its  sea  is  a  vexed, 
muddy,  and  sewer-soiled  harbor.  Its  air 
is  sooty,  rich  in  microbes  and  stenches. 
Its  poetry  is  never  large.  The  city  does 
not  write  epics,  only  verses  of  society. 
13 


It  measures  men  by  their  accidents  rather 
than  quality.  Its  gentleman  is  one  who 
behaves  in  a  conventional  way.  It  breeds 
people  who  think  it  more  honorable  to 
live  on  the  accumulations  and  toil  of 
others  than  their  own.  It  sacrifices  mod- 
esty to  the  decollete  and  slays  honest 
love  in  the  interest  of  wealth  and  family; 
wedding  idleness  to  sloth,  the  drone  to 
the  butterfly,  and  breeds  degenerates. 
The  impost  of  vice  fills  its  treasury;  its 
courts  secrete  and  condone  the  sins  of 
the  successful  and  well-placed. 

The  thinker  by  the  seaside  rests  while 
he  ponders.  Its  salt  quickens  digestion 
and  invigorates  appetite.  He  sleeps  long 
in  the  hush  or  music  of  the  waves.  The 
sun  parlor  of  the  beach  browns  his  pallor. 
The  moods  of  the  sea  prevent  overdoing 
while  commanding  him  to  exercise  in  its 
gymnasium.  The  sea  is  affluent  in  sug- 
gestion to  mind  and  heart.  One  watches 
the  noiseless  incoming  of  the  tide  and 
feels  no  tumult  as  one  sees  its  outgo 
without  despair.  He  w?ho  misses  either 
to-day  is  sure  of  both  to-morrow. 

Though  "the  sea's  a  thief  wThose  liquid 
surge  resolves  the  moon  into  salt  tears," 
14 


it  is  also  a  mighty  stimulus  to  hope.  If 
one  is  moved  to  rod  and  line,  it  is  no 
fished-out  or  forbidden  presence,  but  free 
to  all  with  the  plenitude  of  ocean  life. 
No  matter  how  small  your  bay,  or  shal- 
low, the  tides  creep  to  it,  renew  it,  cool 
it,  warm  it,  fructify  it.  Defeated  to- 
day, you  win  to-morrow.  Your  chance 
is  not  the  gamester's.  Your  luck  not 
inevitable. 

It  is  the  mother  of  surprises.  A  pond 
or  brook  is  a  poor,  limited  pasture  where 
species  and  numbers  must  be  few.  The 
sea  has  a  breadth  of  abundance  in  num- 
bers and  in  kinds.  No  man  can  tell  on 
what  abundance  he  may  this  day  draw. 
While  this  varies  according  to  the  season, 
each  so  fringes  the  others  that  there  is 
really  no  close  time  at  all.  Nor  can  one 
be  certain  of  not  meeting  with  waifs  from 
arctic  or  torrid  belts.  Thus  at  our  bay 
I  have  found  the  cod  of  the  Arctic  and 
the  barracouta  of  the  Caribbean,  and  the 
lumpsucker  from  I  know  not  where.  I 
fancy  this  last  was  brought  adhering  to 
the  bottom  of  some  ship.  But  this  is 
not  probable,  as,  unlike  the  remora,  the 
lumpsucker  does  not  fasten  himself  by 
(3)  15 


his  head,  but  by  a  modification  of  the 
pectoral  and  ventral  fins,  not  unlike  the 
leather  sucker  known  to  all  boys.  More 
than  once  the  fishermen  have  brought  me 
the  edible  turtles  of  the  southern  seas 
caught  in  the  pound  or  sleeping  lazily  on 
the  surface. 


iG 


Ill 


THE    DRAWING    OF    GRANITE    BAY 
Continued 


HILE  the  element  of  luck 
is  not  wanting  to  the  fish- 
ermen in  our  bay,  its 
more  abundant  and  varied 
life  and  the  change  of 
habitat  according  to  season  give  an 
uncertainty  and  interest  the  inland  an- 
gler cannot  know. 

Yet  I  agree  with  Dr.  Van  Dyke  that 
luck  is,  with  many  veteran  fishermen,  the 
chief  attraction.  It  is  long  years  since 
I  have  tried  it  myself,  but  I  love  to 
watch  them  from  my  window.  Such 
know  by  the  character  of  the  bite  and 
behavior  after  hooking  what  fish  is  on. 
But  few,  I  fancy,  can  distinguish  be- 
tween the  snap  of  a  chequit  or  a  bluefish, 
or  between  that  of  the  blackfish  and  the 
eel.  But  behavior  after  hooking  is  very 
17 


unlike.  A  good  eel  seems  twice  as 
heavy  and  ten  times  as  lively  as  a  black- 
fish,  which  outweighs  him.  So  our  fish- 
ermen have  a  charming  uncertainty  as 
to  results,  but  not  as  to  quantity;  that 
is,  uncertainty  as  to  what  they  will  land 
on  any  particular  day. 

The  gift  of  knowing  where  to  fish 
seems  to  be  equally  shared  by  men  of  the 
shore  and  of  the  city.  The  true  fisher- 
man is  as  much  born  as  the  poet.  Thus 
no  one  knows  better  where  to  go  than 
our  railroad  president.  The  rocks  and 
wrecks  where  blackfish  abound,  the  tidal 
runs  for  chequit  and  bluefish,  the  mud 
and  sand  for  flounders  and  eels,  are  all 
open  vision  to  him.  Perhaps  there  is 
something  in  the  skill  by  which  he 
resembles  the  professionals  in  hat, 
clothes,  boots,  and  pipe  which  adds  to 
his  luck.  Our  visitors  feel  certain  of 
luck  when  he  invites  them.  Whether 
his  natural  gift  has  been  increased  by 
converse  with  some  old  master  of  our 
shores  I  know  not;  but  I  do  know  that 
he  can  teach  the  younger  natives. 

Nor  is  he  overanxious  to  impart  his 
secrets.  While  taking  other  city  men  on 
18 


occasion,  he  commonly  goes  alone,  never 
without  reward.  For  this  last  our  table 
is  often  thankful. 

Alas  the  changes  of  years!  Once  his 
success  would  have  made  me  wild  to 
learn  where  he  goes.  It  might  have 
tempted  me  in  extreme  youth  to  follow 
him,  a  maneuver  which  he  well  knows 
how  to  defeat. 

But  years  or  something  else  have 
changed  all  that.  The  fishermen  come 
and  go,  but  I  go  not.  Yet  I  have  glad 
reminiscences  of  cod,  pollock,  and  halibut 
on  the  Bull  Ground,  off  Mount  Desert;  of 
bluefish  off  Edgartown  and  Montauk  ;  of 
porgies  in  Peconic  Bay;  of  trout  in  the 
Adirondacks  and  in  Snake  River,  Idaho; 
of  mackerel  off  Seguin;  and  of  striped 
bass  off  Newport.  On  these  I  live,  and 
if  my  neighbors  at  the  Post  Office,  gath- 
ering at  night,  are  too  pronounced  in 
triumph,  I  am  human  enough  to  hum- 
ble them  by  these  great  memories.  I 
know  I  never  was  a  born  fisherman, 
because  the  fever  has  forever  cooled.  I 
am  no  more  guilty  of  the  death  of  fish, 
though  I  admit  pleasure  in  the  success 
of  those  who  share  their  abundance  with 
19 


me.  I  still  enjoy  the  ardor  of  the  small 
boy,  as  the  picture  shows,  and  some- 
times point  out  to  these  beginners  where 
something  may  be  done. 

So,  comfortable  in  my  chair,  I  watch 
others  when  not  wondering  where  that 
smack,  now  in  sight  off  the  Cow  and  Calf 
Rock,  came  from  and  whither  she  is 
bound.  The  smacks  pass  daily  east  and 
west;  snug,  strong,  and  swift,  not  always 
to  be  distinguished  from  a  yacht  except 
by  the  knowing.  Commonly  they  carry 
no  foretopsail,  but  raise  a  staysail  in  its 
place. 

But  never  do  they  pass  without 
thought  of  their  peril  on  the  Banks, 
where  I  have  heard  their  bells  as  the 
liner  rushed  by  in  the  fog.  Nor  can  I 
keep  out  of  my  mind,  even  on  fairest 
days,  the  widows  and  orphans  at 
Gloucester;  not  even  when  the  salt  cod, 
dear  to  all  New  Englanders,  comes 
creamed  or  in  cakes  to  our  table. 
Every  smack  which  passes  our  bay  is  a 
survivor  and  conqueror  of  fog,  gale, 
collision,  iceberg. 

So  the  sea  must  be  writ  down  as  a  spur 
to   the   imagination.      One   cannot  sit  on 

20 


%'  ^? 

I' 

j,JBg       * "^ 

«  *"'  -                                 vi 

our  rock  without  thought  of  all  the  bays, 
sounds,  estuaries,  gulfs,  seas,  and  oceans 
over  which  we  have  sailed,  to  which  our 
bay  is  a  threshold;  sailing  such  as  one  has 
traversed  over  again;  making  port  once 
more  in  Ireland,  England,  France,  Spain, 
Italy,  Japan,  Korea,  China,  and  in  the 
Atlantic  and  Pacific  harbors.  Thankful 
am  I  that  land  is  now  under  my  feet  and 
not  the  Umbria,  in  the  roaring  forties,  nor 
the  Oceanic  in  a  typhoon  off  Formosa, 
nor  the  Haitati  in  the  Gulf  of  Pechili. 
The  home  ports  suggested  by  the  flags 
crossing  our  bay  evoke  the  steeples, 
minarets,  docks,  wharves,  and  anchor- 
ages which  I  have  seen,  ever  in  thank- 
fulness for  safety  after  weeks  spent  over 
the  forces  of  destruction,  compelled,  in  a 
modern  steamer,  to  be  the  conditions  of 
security. 

On  that  rock  the  imagination  watches 
the  loading  and  unloading  of  cargoes.  It 
hears  the  boatswain's  whistle  ;  the  creak- 
ing of  the  capstan;  the  puffing  of  the 
steam  winch;  the  shrieking  of  the  siren: 
the  blare  of  the  fog  trumpet ;  the  swish 
of  water  by  the  ship's  side;  the  whistling 
of  the  rigging,  and  the  roar  of  the  gale. 

21 


It  feels  the  first  throb  of  the  engine. 
It  clambers  down  the  iron  ladders  of  the 
fire  room  and  pays  again  its  shilling  for 
a  sight  of  the  stokehole.  It  squints  and 
peers  into  the  cold  night  with  the  officer 
on  the  bridge.  It  clings  to  the  safety 
line,  lurches  into  the  forecastle  and  sleeps 
with  the  sailors.  It  stands  by  the  quar- 
termaster, and  watches  the  glass  with  the 
captain.  It  hears  the  order  to  shorten 
sail;  screws  on  the  storm  doors  against 
the  hurricane;  starts  into  agony  with  the 
cry  of  "man  overboard!"  and  stares  at 
the  rocket,  the  life  buoy,  and  the  boat. 
It  cheers  with  a  thousand  others  when 
the  drowning  man  is  rescued,  or  weeps 
over  the  quick  and  watery  burial  if  he 
comes  not  back.  It  cringes  again  with 
the  thunder  of  seas  on  the  deck,  and 
shivers  once  more  in  the  icy  winds 
swooping  down  from  Fuji  Yama.  It 
bears  me  back  to  the  soft  airs  I  breathed 
at  Girgenti  and  the  marvelous  shores  of 
^Etna  and  Vesuvius.  Once  again  I  see 
the  rocky  windings  of  the  coast  of 
Maine,  the  tidal  waves  of  the  Bay  of 
Fundy,  the  sand  dunes  of  Cape  Cod,  the 
gravelly  cliffs  of  Montauk,  the  light-ship 


off  Nantucket  South  Shoals,  the  sandy 
mouth  of  the  Rio  Grande,  the  dome  of 
Rainier,  the  sawteeth  of  the  Olympic 
Range,  the  glaciers  of  the  Selkirks,  and 
the  forest  islands  of  Puget  Sound. 

Thus  glancing,  leaping,  but  always 
home  coming,  my  quickened  thought 
travels  the  seas  I  have  traversed.  Our 
bay  has  its  close  connections  with  the 
greatest  oceans.  All  this  is  mine  and 
I  stir  not  from  my  rock. 

Just  as  the  sea  invades  the  land 
through  the  rivers  so  does  its  traffic 
reach  the  markets  of  the  interior. 
Hourly  seagoing  tugs  drag  past  our 
harbor  long  lines  of  coal  barges,  no 
longer  the  proud  and  independent  ships 
and  steamers  they  once  were,  but  para- 
sites of  a  little  but  mighty  boat. 

Perhaps  that  empty  tow  dragging  back 
to  New  York  is  the  very  one  I  saw  last 
week  from  Cape  Cod's  highest  light  on 
her  way  to  Maine  or  nearer  States.  Her 
coal  is  now  driving  the  spindles  at  Lewis- 
ton  or  Gardiner  or  sawing  lumber  at 
Bangor.  Perhaps  that  other  long  pen- 
nant of  smoke  under  the  hills  of  Long 
Island  bears  power  to  Boston's  electric 
23 


plant  and  New  Hampshire's  locomotives. 
Some  tons  of  that  cargo  may  warm  the 
old  homes  of  Emerson  at  Concord,  Whit- 
tier  at  Amesbury,  of  Lowell  and  Longfel- 
low at  Cambridge,  whirl  the  spindles  on 
the  Merrimac,  or  warm  the  gilded  codfish 
which  hangs  above  the  legislators  of  the 
Commonwealth  of  Massachusetts. 

Sitting  there,  imagination  does  more 
than  scan  the  surface.  Without  diving 
bell  or  armor  it  walks  the  shallows  and 
the  deeps. 

There  it  stumbles  on  the  familiar  and 
the  unknown. 

Overhead  rush  and  circle  vast  schools 
of  menhaden  coming  from  the  outer  sea, 
chased  by  the  shark,  the  herring  hog, 
and  the  porpoise ;  racing  from  these 
only  to  be  encompassed  by  the  purse 
net. 

The  diving  ducks  flash  by  one's  side, 
rooting  among  the  eelgrass  for  fiddler 
crabs  and  coot  clams.  One  treads  on  flat- 
fish and  flounders,  buried  all  but  the  head, 
and  stamps  out  the  sinuous  trail  of  the 
lamprey  and  the  silver  eel.  The  black- 
fish  bite  off  the  barnacles  from  old  wrecks 
and  the  sides  of  rocks  ;  the  sheepshead 
24 


crunches  the  young  oysters;  the  starfish 
throttles  those  of  larger  growth,  contend- 
ing with  the  drill  already  boring  into  their 
hearts  ;  the  periwinkle  limps  along  on  its 
one  horny  sole  ;  the  blue  crab,  point  first, 
paddles  to  its  hiding  place  in  the  rocks  ; 
the  lobster  hooks  itself  backward  to 
some  dead  fish,  seen  by  eyes  on  the  end  of 
movable  stalks  ;  the  hermit  crab  drags 
feebly  along,  as  is  the  way  with  degener- 
ates, its  stolen  house;  the  spider  crab  nips 
the  passing  minnow;  the  king  crab  creeps 
for  egg  laying  toward  the  sun-warmed 
beach.  The  weakfish  snatches  the  killie; 
the  bluefish  gorges  both.  The  skate, 
with  waving  wings,  scoops  out  the  soft 
clam,  while  his  cousin,  the  stingray,  robs 
him  of  his  catch.  A  splash  above,  and 
the  talons  of  the  osprey  or  the  beak  of  the 
kingfisher  snatch  some  fish  from  your 
side  and,  struggling  into  the  air,  are 
robbed  by  the  bald  eagle. 

There  in  the  ooze  one  stumbles  over 
rusty  cables;  the  flukes  of  anchors,  speak- 
ing of  some  wreck  beyond  the  knowledge 
of  men.  Glass  bottles,  old  rubber  boots, 
are  freckled  with  young  oysters,  the  spat 
setting  only  on  smooth  and  polished  sur- 
25 


face.  There  too  are  shadowy  spars  hon- 
eycombed by  the  teredo.  If  imagination 
dares  to  follow  the  Sound  courses,  they  are 
known  by  the  long  trail  of  human  bones. 
Swinging  in  the  tidal  currents  are  veils 
and  fringes,  of  utmost  delicacy  of  green 
and  texture,  growing  from  wreck  and 
rock.  Long  ribbons  of  kelp  with  ruffled 
edges,  bladders  and  fronds  of  seaweed, 
and  pods  of  rockweed  float  out  from  their 
bases  with  infinite  variety  of  filament  and 
tint. 

Up!  out  of  the  depths  to  fairer  sights. 
The  sea  is  one  vast  slaughter-house,  one 
eternal  war,  but  evermore  the  fecund 
mother  of  various  life. 

Is  there  anything  Shakespeare  did  not 
know  ? 

"  Methought  I  saw  a  thousand  fearful  wrecks  : 
Ten  thousand  men  that  fishes  gnawed  upon  ; 
Wedges  of  gold,  great  anchors,  heaps  of  pearl, 
Inestimable  stones,  unvalued  jewels, 
All  scattered  in  the  bottom  of  the  sea." 

— King  Richard  III,  act  i,  sc.  4. 
26 


IV 

THE    DRAWING    OF    GRANITE    BAY 
Continued 

ARELY,  very  rarely,  is  our  bay 
perfectly  calm.  It  is  some- 
times, and  God  be  praised  for 
it,  a  sea  of  azure  glass  min- 
gled with  fire;  of  glass, 
black  and  star  sprinkled. 
One  can  tell  when  wind  is 
coming  by  the  round  reflection  of 
the  moon  changing  to  a  broad  bar  of 
light  flashing  with  golden  wrinkles. 

I  was  long  puzzled  to  know  why  this 
moonwake  always  followed  as  I  walked, 
ever,  always  between  the  moon  and  me. 
I  came  to  see  that  no  two  persons  see 
the  same  wake  unless  they  both  walk  in 
a  line  drawn  through  both  to  the  moon, 
and  the  rear  one  should  then  be  tall 
enough  to  look  over  the  other's  head. 
Then  the  eyes  of  both  would  rest  on  the 
27 


same  wave  facets  and  the  same  reflec- 
tions in  them.  The  moonwake  one  sees 
is  almost  absolutely  one's  own. 

Our  bay  is  moody;  seldom  the  same, 
and  never  unless  conditions  of  tide, 
wind,  cloud,  and  light  are  alike.  Let 
the  mathematician  calculate  the  prob- 
ability of  this!  When  do  seaside  forces 
concur  and  coincide  ?  Some  forces 
change  her  face  in  ways  our  wisest  fail 
to  understand. 

From  our  perch  on  the  rock  we  often 
see  a  belt,  miles  long,  of  tiny  waves,  but 
only  a  few  yards  wide,  and  very  differ- 
ent in  aspect  from  the  rip  made  by 
schools  of  fish.  This  last  is  eagerly 
looked  for  by  the  man  at  the  masthead 
of  the  purse  net  steamer.  It  will  often 
be  perfectly  calm  on  each  side  of  this 
ripple. 

Again  we  see  belts  of  glassy  calm  curv- 
ing out  from  the  Cut  and  extending  a  mile 
seaward  with  good  breezes  on  either  side. 
Neither  the  Fisherman,  the  Giant,  nor  the 
Mystery  of  whom  I  write  later  could  ever 
give  any  reason  for  these.  If  they  did 
not  know,  who  shall?  The  Long  Captain, 
who  knows  much  and  does  not  enjoy 
28 


being  ignorant  of  anything,  has  a  theory, 
but  it  is  not  wholly  convincing  to  all, 
not  being  according  to  all  the  observed 
facts. 

We  are  certain  of  but  one  thing  con- 
cerning these  streaks.  They  prophesy  a 
change  of  wind. 

Long  ago  I  came  to  believe  with  the 
Princess  of  Thule  in  the  natural  amiability 
of  the  sea.  That  best  of  William  Black's 
stories  is  not  at  this  writing  accessible 
to  me.  But  I  am  sure  she  therein  says: 
"  The  sea  would  not  hurt  anybody  if  the 
wind  would  let  it  alone." 

From  every  quarter  the  wind  ruffles 
her,  roils  her,  whips  her,  and  threshes  the 
rocks  with  her.  Without  the  wind  she  is 
utterly  placid,  rising  and  falling  silently 
without  so  much  as  lapping  the  rocks. 

Surely  it  is  scandalous  that  the  poets 
conspire  to  abuse  the  sea.  When  did  it 
roll  of  its  own  accord  ?  What  rage  of  its 
own  ever  made  the  sea  deaf,  as  King 
Richard  is  made  to  say,  adding  to  this 
demeaning  adjective  the  others,  "rough 
and  rude."  The  sea  would  never  roll  a 
wave  if  moon  and  wind  would  keep 
hands  off! 

29 


At  our  bay  the  northwest  wind  handles 
the  meanest  whip.  Its  strokes  raise 
welts  like  the  Russian  knout.  It  howls 
down  on  us  in  puffs  and  squalls  of  sur- 
prises and  aggravations.  Every  moment 
it  seems  as  if  failing  and  yet  holds  on  for 
three  days  !  In  summer  it  shoots  out 
from  a  thunder  cloud  and  in  winter  from 
the  white  haze  of  snow  squalls.  This  is 
the  wind  which  rattles  our  blinds,  slams 
our  doors,  upsets  careless  craft,  and 
compels  tugs  and  schooners  to  salaam  to 
it  until  they  have  time  to  measure  it. 

From  our  perch  we  see  its  black  patches 
race  over  the  waves  and  can  follow  them 
until  they  careen  a  boat  a  mile  away. 
Yet  the  sailor  cannot  see  them  except  as 
they  raise  the  headline  of  a  squall.  If 
he  is  a  true  sailor,  his  mainsheet  is  never 
fast  while  this  vixen  blows. 

It  is  a  vexatious  wind,  summer  and  win- 
ter, and  has  a  chill  within.  With  its  first 
blast  the  mercury  climbs  down  from  8o° 
to  6o°  in  summer,  and  in  winter  from  6o° 
to  zero.  In  Texas  Januarys,  I  have  seen 
her  free  citizens  shirt  sleeved  and  chair 
tilted  in  summer  ease  at  nine  of  the  morn- 
ing, and  two  hours  later  have  found  the 
30 


wet  road  frozen.  I  like  not  this  wind. 
It  tunes  nerves  to  discords.  All  slack- 
ened filaments  are  screwed  up  beyond 
any  possibility  of  concert  pitch,  so  that 
friends  doubt  friendship  and  consorts 
pray  for  forbearance.  All  this  in  a  sin- 
gle hour. 

The  east  winds  are  of  a  different  tem- 
per. Our  captains  tell  this  in  their  max- 
im, "Run  with  the  first  of  an  easter  and 
the  last  of  a  nor'wester."  The  winds 
from  the  east  begin  gently.  Only  once 
in  many  years  have  I  known  a  squall 
from  the  east.  That  day  the  rocks  were 
crowded  with  people.  Some  women  were 
on  Flat  Rock,  where  they  had  no  business 
to  be,  for  it  is  under  four  feet  of  water  at 
high  tide.  Two  men  past  seventy  were 
on  Scotch  Cap.  A  small  cloud  rose  in 
the  southeast,  and  out  of  this  came  a  two 
hours'  gale  of  full  force  from  its  first  mo- 
ment. The  older  baymen  saw  the  cloud 
and  came  inside.  But  the  newcomers 
stayed  out.  Our  oldest  captain  saved  the 
women  with  difficulty  and  drove  before 
the  wind  to  safety.  His  son  went  out  in 
his  launch  into  the  boiling  sea,  got  under 
the  lee  of  Scotch  Cap,  pulled  the  old  men 
(4)  3i 


on  board  with  a  rope,  and  brought  men 
and  boat  back.  No  other  craft  in  the 
bay  could  have  done  it. 

Yet,  in  general,  the  east  winds  begin 
mildly,  gain  force  each  hour,  and  roar 
from  twelve  hours  to  three  days;  expiring 
with  a  mighty  gust  into  almost  painful 
quiet. 

Except  when  mingled  with  the  south 
wind  our  boats  have  no  fear  of  these  at 
Granite  Bay.  The  long  wooded  point 
forming  the  eastern  boundary  is  a  great 
shelter.  No  winds  have  such  weight  and 
force  for  things  on  land  ;  shaking  our 
houses;  breaking  down  and  blowing  over 
trees;  whistling,  screaming,  and  shrieking 
around  our  corners;  and  bending  our 
hemlocks  until  their  roots  lift  and  lower 
the  ground  in  which  they  grow.  I  have 
lost  two  great  hemlocks  by  this  process. 
They  were  not  overturned,  but  all  the 
finer  root  fibers  were  broken  and  they 
died  of  anaemia. 

Nor  are  we  without  experience  of 
mightier  winds  than  these. 

Three  times  in  sixteen  years  and  twice 
in  one  week  West  India  hurricanes 
swooped  down,  and  for  twelve  hours  kept 
32 


everyone  awake  and  anxious.  The  wind 
came  strongly  from  the  northeast,  hauled 
to  the  east  and  then  to  the  southeast. 
With  it  came  the  highest  tide  and  heavi- 
est sea  ever  known.  When  it  passed  the 
sea  wall  was  undermined,  the  houses  on 
the  beach  were  drenched  with  water,  and 
where  not  lifted  and  turned  about  the 
earth  beneath  them  was  washed  out;  the 
lawns  covered  with  sand.  One  boat  after 
another  was  smashed  to  kindling  wood 
against  the  rocks.  In  the  Cut  the  yachts 
and  launches  went  ashore,  men  risking 
their  lives  to  save  them.  The  ribs  of  the 
Winnie  may  still  be  seen  at  low  tide  half 
buried  in  the  mud  below  the  Fisherman's 
house.  On  land  no  one  could  make 
headway  against  the  wind  except  by  dodg- 
ing from  shelter  to  shelter.  Outbuildings 
lay  on  their  sides  and  chimneys  were  lev- 
eled to  the  roof.  No  man  could  hear  his 
neighbor  in  the  roar  of  wind  and  sea. 
Peninsulas  became  islands  at  high  water 
and  hollows  became  lakes. 

It  is  after  such  blows  that  we  are  re- 
warded by  some  of  our  most  beautiful 
sights.  During  such  weather  the  schoon- 
ers hurry  behind  the  breakwater  at  Old- 

33 


port.  The  moment  the  glass  begins  to 
rise  and  the  wind  shifts  to  the  north- 
west out  they  come  in  glorious  proces- 
sion in  full  sail  and  pass  our  bay.  Thus 
I  have  counted  a  hundred  sail  in  close 
order  as  of  one  command,  but  soon  string- 
ing out  by  difference  of  speed  into  a  line 
of  twenty  miles.  This  is  only  equaled 
during  the  summer  cruise  of  the  New 
York  Yacht  Club.  It  passes  in  August 
with  a  hundred  white  wings  and  the  finest 
fleet  of  steam  yachts  in  the  world.  In  the 
one  case  commerce  masses  her  forces,  in 
the  other  pleasure.  In  the  one  fleet  as 
little  is  done  for  the  comfort'of  the  sailor 
as  possible.     In  the  other  everything. 

When  will  it  be  that  the  men  who 
dare  for  commerce  and  are  the  bonds  of 
civilization  will  be  as  well  housed,  as 
well  fed,  and  as  honored  as  the  servants 
of  pleasure  ? 

The  east  winds  bring  us  the  beauty  of 
fog  and  mist. 

Sometimes  an  opaque  wall  shuts  the 
whole  world  out  so  that  we  lose  our- 
selves in  it  to  find  our  nearest  neigh- 
bor. More  often  it  softens  all  outlines, 
limits  distance,  turns  our  thoughts  inward 
34 


and  helps    us   in   letting  the   great  world 
go  by. 

I  know  nothing  more  beautiful  than 
these  fog  effects.  Often  when  it  breaks 
a  single  topsail  will  catch  the  sun,  while 
hull  and  other  sails  are  invisible.  Again 
it  will  open  to  reveal  a  single  vessel  in  a 
circle  of  sunlit  sea.  It  hides  the  black 
and  forbidding  reefs,  but  lets  the  trees 
stand  out  growing  from  a  cushion  of 
vapor.  Its  suggestions  are  dismal  only 
when,  in  the  night,  it  is  condensed  by  the 
cool  roof  and  drizzles  and  drips  from  the 
eaves.  Then  we  hear  the  wail  of  the 
siren  on  New  Reef  and  the  scream  of 
the  horn  on  Faulkner's.  The  hoarse  boom 
of  the  Sound  steamers  mingles  with  these. 
Safe  in  our  beds,  we  who  Know  the  chief 
peril  of  the  sea  know  the  pilots  are  strain- 
ing to  catch  the  oncoming  lights,  whether 
red  or  green,  and  the  men  at  the  watch 
stations  as  eager  and  as  anxious  against 
the  bowsprit  of  some  schooner  as  the  bow 
of  some  steamer. 

35 


THE    DRAWING    OF    GRANITE    KAY 
Cont  in  ue d 

GAIN  the  fog  lies  low 
so  that  all  is  clear 
and  blue  above  and 
all  gray  and  damp 
beneath.  Then  we 
see  men  at  mastheads 
watching  for  other  mastheads, 
and  giving  courses  to  the  helms- 
men by  waving  of  right  hand  or  left, 
or  by  megaphone  if  the  fog  be  too 
dense.  Out  of  a  sea  of  fog  these  rise ; 
no  lower  sail  or  hull  in  sight.  It  is 
never  more  beautiful  than  when  the 
west  wind  rolls  it  over  and  sweeps  it 
away,  strip  by  strip,  revealing  in  turn 
the  bay,  the  islands,  and  the  open  sea. 

Nothing  is  comparable  to  this  move- 
ment of  the  fog  except  the  sweep  of  our 
thunderstorms.  We  can  see  them  over 
the  woods  long  before  they  come.  In- 
deed, the  two  peaks  near  Oldport  divide 
them  as  often  as  permitting  them  to 
36 


reach  us,  one  half  moving  southward 
over  Long  Island,  the  other  northward 
to  follow  the  Connecticut  valley.  The 
thunderstorms  are  our  active  intense  and 
brief  pictures;  shot  with  lightning,  tre- 
mendously vocal,  more  sublime  if  not 
more  beautiful  than  other  storms.  They 
are  first  promised  by  white  domes  of 
cloud  with  slate  color  below,  deepening 
at  the  lowest  to  black.  When  greenish 
black  we  get  ready  for  dangerous  wind 
and  expect  severe  lightning  and  hail. 
The  edge  of  the  coming  storm  is  sharp. 
I  have  seen  it  rain  at  my  barn  while  the 
house  was  in  bright  sunshine. 

But  generally  a  rolling  and  irregular 
cloud  wrack  swiftly  heralds  the  wind. 
If  any  white  scud  precedes  it,  we  know 
that  it  will  be  a  dangerous  squall.  As 
the  black  cloud  line  advances  the  blue  of 
the  sea  is  blackened  into  wrinkled  ink. 
The  air  is  heavy  with  rolling  mist  and 
then  driving  rain.  The  lightning  has 
rarely  struck  near  us.  In  twenty  years 
but  twice  in  the  Park.  A  tall  ash  and 
equally  tall  pine  show  the  lightning  seam 
on  the  northern  side.  On  the  lower  land 
of  the  beach  it  split  a  great  elm  from  top 

37 


to  root.  It  has  never  within  living  mem- 
ory seriously  damaged  house  or  occupant. 

On  one  or  two  occasions  I  have  used 
the  extremely  favorable  conditions  to 
photograph  the  lightning  flash.  After 
the  golden  light  shows  in  the  west  with 
patches  of  blue  the  rear  guard  of  tumul- 
tuous vapor  rushes  by,  leaving  us  in 
sunlight,  while  all  to  the  eastward  is  still 
black  with  the  storm.  We  are  then  able 
to  study  with  pleasure  its  rumbling  and 
rolling  retreat.  At  dusk  the  camera  is 
put  out  facing  the  black  wall  of  cloud 
down  which  the  lightning  still  shoots. 
One  negative  shows  two  parallel  streaks 
of  lightning  with  branches  like  twin  trees 
reversed.  These  white  lines  of  light  are 
mimicked  by  black  lines  of  the  same 
ramifying  quality,  but  not  sufficiently  ex- 
act copies  to  convince  us  that  they  are 
shadows  of  the  lightning  on  the  clouds 
behind.  What  these  are  I  do  not  know, 
nor  do  I  recall  any  study  of  them  by 
electricians.  But  the  black  lines  are 
there. 

During  the  march  of  these  storms  we 
measure  their  probable  force  by  the  be- 
havior of  the  vessels  to  the  south  and 
38 


east.  If  they  keep  on  their  way  in  full 
sail,  we  know  that  only  a  mild  storm  is 
coming.  When  they  take  in  their  jibs 
and  head  up  to  the  wind  we  expect  a 
moderate  squall.  But  when  they  let 
everything  down  with  a  run,  and  anchor, 
we  are  all  solemn  until  the  gust  is  past. 
The  men  of  the  sea  seem  never  to  be 
mistaken  in  their  measurement  of  the  en- 
ergy of  the  storm. 

Scientific  men  are  in  general  very  skep- 
tical as  to  the  moon's  influence  over  the 
weather.  But  it  is  now  admitted  that  in 
Long  Island  Sound,  on  the  Connecticut 
shore  especially,  the  weather  is  greatly 
influenced  by  the  moon,  and  apparently  to 
a  greater  extent  than  elsewhere.  No  one 
of  our  old  salts  can  be  made  to  believe  to 
the  contrary.  They  say,  "We  shall  have 
no  good  weather  until  the  moon  quar- 
ters," and  this  is  confirmed  by  my  own 
observations.  If  bad  weather  comes  on 
shortly  after  the  new  moon,  it  stays  with 
us  until  the  first  quarter.  When  a  storm 
comes  on  the  full  moon  it  seems  to  have 
difficulty  in  gathering  its  forces.  It  will 
be  violent  thirty  miles  inland,  but  mod- 
erate and  often  without  rain  at  the  shore. 

39 


Again  and  again  it  has  at  the  full  moon 
snowed  all  day,  cleared  when  the  moon 
came  up,  and  snowed  the  next  day, 
and  this  for  three  or  four  days  together. 
"When  all  men  admit  the  influence  of  the 
moon  on  the  tides  it  does  not  seem 
unreasonable  that,  either  by  direct  influ- 
ence or  through  the  vast  movement  of 
the  tides,  the  weather  should  be  affected. 
There  is  a  great  difference  in  the  qual- 
ity and  effect  of  the  southwest  wind  on 
occasion.  Nor  does  it  seem  to  depend 
for  these  variations  of  effect  on  the 
strength  of  that  wind.  For  hours  it  will 
blow  with  increasing  force  under  a  clear 
sky,  or  at  most  with  light  cumulus 
clouds,  locally  known  as  "gulf  clouds." 
Another  day,  when  of  equal  force,  it 
brings  with  it  a  semidiaphanous  bluish 
haze,  through  wThich,  until  the  declining 
sun,  nothing  at  any  distance  is  visible. 
The  horizontal  rays  near  sunset  gild  and 
penetrate  this  haze  until,  if  it  be  not  an 
aid  to  vision,  it  is  no  longer  an  obstruc- 
tion. Under  these  conditions  wre  have 
our  finest  twilights,  preceded  by  ruddy 
alpglow  tints  on  the  distant  sails,  the 
gilding  of  all  our  eastward  rocks  so 
4o 


brightly  that  they  seem  banks  and  bil- 
lows of  old  gold. 

For  the  finest  wave  effects  we  look  to 
the  south  wind,  which  has  full  play  over  a 
reach  of  twenty-two  miles,  entering  our 
bay  unbroken  by  bar  or  reef.  Mostly  it 
is  so  gentle  that  it  raises  only  delicate 
wrinkles.  Sometimes  it  is  a  "  whole  sail 
breeze,"  much  loved  for  its  steadiness  by 
our  boatmen. 

Five  or  six  times  a  year,  however,  it  is 
very  much  something  else,  and  lifts  a  surf 
which  would  honor  an  ocean  beach.  It 
has  blown  with  such  weight  that  the  cot- 
tager on  the  beach  could  not  close  his 
door  single-handed ;  and  if  rain  comes 
with  it,  it  is  sure  to  trouble  the  housewife 
with  the  water  driven  under  doors  and 
windows. 

While  at  high  tide  this  south  wind  is 
in  some  respects  the  least  spectacular;  it 
is  in  other  respects  the  most  so.  All  our 
rocks  and  cliffs  are  extended  in  a  north 
and  south  line,  the  southern  end  of 
rock  and  cliff  being  perpendicular,  as  the 
east  face  always  is.  The  south  wind 
smashes  the  sea  against  these,  throws  it 
high  into  the  air,  and  carries  it  far  inland. 
41 


The  first  dash  is  in  effect  like  that  of  a 
submarine  explosion,  a  green  and  white 
dome;  the  second  is  of  a  like  tinted 
cloud  curving  over  the  rock  and  driving 
inland,  thinning,  falling,  vanishing.  On 
the  opposite  side  of  the  bay  between  two 
prongs  of  Church  Point  a  granite  cliff 
thirty  feet  high  runs  east  and  west.  It 
is  hidden  from  us  by  one  of  these  wooded 
prongs.  When  the  south  wind  does  its 
best  a  vast  fountain  plays  there.  The 
emerald  foam  leaps  high  above  the  trees 
and  sweeps  over  their  tops. 

It  is  then,  too,  that  the  south  end  of 
Lovers'  Island,  wonderfully  like  the  ram 
of  an  ironclad,  splits  the  surf  into  di- 
verging rollers,  which  curve  over  and 
rush  on  to  strike  Stanley  Rock  and  leap 
over  into  the  little  harbor  behind. 

Thrilling  as  all  this  is  it  is  mostly 
unwelcome  to  the  beach  folk.  The 
boats  at  the  hauling  lines  are  swamped, 
smashed  against  the  sea  wall,  and  their 
fragments  buried  in  sand;  and  they  count 
themselves  fortunate  if  some  greater  wave 
does  not  leap  over  the  wall,  wash  out 
their  posts  undermine  their  foundations, 
and  fill  the  cellars  with  brine  and  sand. 
42 


The  struggle  to  save  the  boats  well 
over,  such  a  gale  brings  out  a  crowd  in 
mackintoshes  and  rubber  boots  to  watch 
the  maddest  leaping  of  water  I  know, 
except  that  of  the  Whirlpool  Rapids  of 
Niagara.  The  sea  wall  runs  east  and 
west  at  right  angles  to  the  general  trend 
of  the  coast,  as  do  many  small  faces  of 
rock  on  both  sides  of  the  bay.  Thus  the 
inward  sweep  of  the  surf  is  diverted 
toward  the  middle  of  the  bay,  massing 
itself  there.  It  first  strikes  Half  Tide 
Rock,  over  which  it  lifts  itself  at  full 
tide  in  a  great  billow.  Then,  no  obstruc- 
tion in  its  way,  it  hurls  its  full  force 
against  the  sea  wall  once  more,  there 
leaping  upward  and  sometimes  over  the 
roofs  of  the  houses. 

At  low  tide,  as  the  bay  is  shallow,  the 
waves  begin  to  break  far  out  and  roar 
themselves  in,  white-crested,  foaming, 
and,  to  the  eye,  higher  than  at  full  tide. 
They  make  up  then  in  "the  noise  of 
many  waters "  what  they  lack  in  real 
power.  The  friction  on  the  bottom  so 
diminishes  their  energy  that  they  run 
languidly  up  the  sands,  but  the  noise  is 
tenfold  that  at  high  tide. 

43 


When  the  turmoil  is  over  the  beach  is 
an  interesting  but  sorry  sight.  Wind- 
rows of  rockweed  and  eelgrass  hide  the 
sand.  Tons  of  small  shells  are  en- 
veloped therein.  •  One  may  then  find  in 
this  and  in  the  crevices  and  hollows  of 
the  rocks  the  beautiful  silver  and  gold 
shells,  so  frail  that  it  would  seem  they 
must  have  been  ground  to  powder.  Our 
maidens  then  seek  them,  and  on  rainy  days 
string  them  into  curtains  and  portieres. 

Now  is  the  time  to  search  for  the  treas- 
ures of  the  sea.  I  have  found  many  times 
the  bony  plates  of  the  sturgeon,  some  of 
the  rarer  starfish,  and  a  flat  coral-like  disk 
with  a  star  on  the  upper  side,  evidently 
a  cousin  of  the  echinus  and  starfish,  as 
they  are  cousins  of  each  other.  Its  name 
is,  in  common  speech,  "sand  dollar;"  in 
science,  Echinarachnius  panna.  There 
one  may  often  find  the  beautiful  and  per- 
fect shells  of  king  crabs,  so  small  and 
delicate  that  one  is  amazed  that  they  sur- 
vive the  tumult  of  the  "many  sounding 
sea."  It  is  ever  a  puzzle  that  many  such 
come  in  unbroken,  while  larger  shells  and 
the  stronger  claws  of  crab  and  lobster 
are  chafed,  worn,  and  broken.     The  still 

44 


harder  clam  and  oyster  shells  are  almost 
always  fragmentary,  while  millions  of  the 
little  coot  clam  shells,  heavier  by  far 
than  the  gold  and  silver  shells,  lie  nearer 
shore  in  rows  by  themselves.  Almost 
all  these  have  a  minute  round  hole 
directly  over  the  spot  where  the  strong 
closing  muscle  of  the  clam  is  attached, 
showing  the  deadly  accuracy  of  the 
borer,  whose  drill  kills  so  surely. 

Broken  oars,  boat  seats,  trunks  of  trees, 
boards,  and  planks  lie  up  against  the  sea 
wall,  telling  in  part  their  own  history. 
If  riddled  by  the  teredo  and  spotted  with 
oyster  spat,  they  floated  long,  sank  to 
the  bottom,  weighted  down  by  the  lime 
or  thin  layer  of  shell  with  which  the 
teredo  lines  its  circular  tunnel  through 
the  wood.  Such  have  been  driven  along 
the  bottom  to  the  shores.  But  if  clean, 
they  are  part  of  some  deckload  of  lum- 
ber from  Maine  or  the  Provinces.  Such 
come  in  smoothed  and  even  polished  by 
the  sand  in  which  they  have  been  washed 
and  rolled. 

This  kind  of  driftwood  does  not  burn 
with  the  beautiful  colors  shown  by  an- 
other kind  which  reaches  us  more  rarely. 

45 


These  flames  are  due  to  the  salts  of  iron 
and  copper  from  vessels  fastened  by  these 
metals. 

The  cottagers  are  saved  the  trouble  of 
cleaning  the  beach  after  a  storm.  The 
thrift  of  the  families  near  by  brings  them 
quickly  down  to  rake  up  and  carry  away 
the  great  masses  of  seaweed  and  eel- 
grass,  which  they  use  as  direct  fertilizers 
or  as  absorbents. 

This  brings  to  mind  one  of  the  most 
picturesque  of  our  autumn  sights.  In 
Connecticut  no  one  can  own  land  below 
high- water  mark  except  by  grant  from  the 
State.  Below  this  well-defined  line  all  is 
common  property.  So  that  if  your  rocks 
are  rich  in  rockweed,  a  valued  fertilizer, 
you  do  not  own  a  spray  of  it  below 
high-water  mark  where  little  or  none 
ever  grows.  Few  of  the  cottagers  wish 
it,  as  it  has  a  vile  odor  when  decaying. 
The  shore  people  gather  it  after  the  cot- 
tagers are  gone.  These  follow  the  coast 
rocks  in  large  sharpies,  hooking  off  the 
weed  and  bringing  it  ashore  in  boats 
loaded  so  deeply  that  they  have  but  two 
or  three  inches  of  freeboard. 
46 


r.' ...  f ,; 

aMUl^r 

i 

VI 

THE    DRAWING    OF    GRANITE    BAY 
Co?itinttei 

HE  time  for  gathering  rock- 
weed  is  also  the  time  for 
shooting  ducks,  a  diversion 
of  little  pleasure  or  profit, 
I  fancy,  to  most,  but  very  fascinating  to 
some  and  not  without  its  dangers.  For 
several  winters  past  one  or  two  have  lost 
their  lives  off  our  bay  by  the  swamping 
of  their  boats.  Some  have  been  driven 
off  shore  by  the  sudden  and  cruel  north- 
west wind  and  have  been  found  frozen 
to  death  under  the  sand  hills  of  Long 
Island. 

It  is  true  that  occasionally  a  few  black 
ducks  or  even  mallards  are  found  in  the 
acres  of  coots  and  oldwives  which  lie  off 
the  bay  and  come  into  shoal  water  to 
dive  for  coot  clams.  Coots  and  oldwives 
(5)  47 


have  the  flavor  of  decaying  fish.  Yet 
these  are  eagerly  pursued,  and  from 
November  to  Apri.1  the  guns  are  banging 
seaward  from  dawn  to  dusk.  Sometimes 
a  line  of  boats  is  stretched  across  the 
whole  width  of  the  bay.  This  is  murder- 
ous, for  few  ducks  can  pass  alive  the  line 
of  fifty  guns. 

This,  however,  depends  on  whether  the 
shore  folk  have  made  the  line.  Almost 
always  some  of  the  boats  are  manned  by 
those  whose  confidence  is  greater  than 
their  skill.  Not  all  who  are  good  at  a 
target  can  hit  a  duck  moving  fifty  miles 
an  hour.  This  is  below  their  highest 
speed.  I  have  seen  a  flock  of  ducks  in 
the  Hudson  River  keep  pace  with  and  even 
pass  the  swiftest  express  trains.  I  recall 
another  measure  of  their  speed.  Many 
years  ago  I  spent  a  night  with  a  keeper 
in  the  lantern  of  the  lofty  Shinnecock 
light,  on  the  south  Long  Island  coast.  A 
duck  struck  the  thick  plate  glass  on  the 
east  side,  cracked  it  badly,  and  lay  out- 
side on  the  platform  a  shapeless  pulp 
of  flesh  and  feathers. 

These  clucks  know  their  friends.  No 
shot  is  fired  from  my  place  with  my  con- 
48 


sent.  Hence  the  birds  and  squirrels  fre- 
quent it  as  they  do  my  neighbor's  grounds, 
where  they  are  as  welcome.  The  sea 
birds  swim  near  our  rocks  fearlessly,  but 
keep  away  from  other  points.  Early  in 
the  morning  they  are  sometimes  within 
fifty  feet  of  the  shore.  It  is  a  delight  to 
watch  these  masters  of  all  weather,  preen- 
ing, stretching,  and  diving,  and  some- 
times excitedly  chattering  ;  for  these  wild 
ducks  do  not  quack,  but  have  a  far  more 
musical  note,  unlike  any  other  birds  I 
know. 

Appearing  in  October  in  small  flocks, 
they  increase  in  numbers  until  January 
and  remain  until  May.  They  do  not  ap- 
pear until  the  sailboats  and  launches  are 
housed  ashore,  and  go  when  the  boats 
are  launched  again.  Anyone  who  writes 
the  truth  as  to  their  numbers  will  be 
thought  imaginative  by  all  who  do  not 
know  the  facts.  How  many  are  there  in 
that  patch  I  often  see  stretching  over  the 
five  miles  from  the  Beacon  to  the  Old 
Light  ? 

Once  I  saw  the  departure  for  the  sum- 
mer of  this  acreage  of  ducks.  For  two 
days,  as  if  by  understanding,  they  gath- 

49 


ered  off  our  bay.  The  numbers  hourly 
increased.  The  noise  was  incessant  and 
worrying.  Suddenly  there  rose  from  the 
center  a  black  and  white  cone,  point  up- 
ward, which  widened  at  the  base  as  those 
farther  from  the  center  took  wing.  When 
it  had  risen  to  perhaps  a  thousand  feet 
the  point  of  the  cone  headed  north- 
west followed  by  .a  V-shaped  cloud,  and 
the  summer  saw  them  no  more.  Yet  a 
very  few  linger  in  out-of-the-way  coves 
all  the  season  and  are  known  as  "pen- 
sioners." They  have  been  wounded  be- 
yond flight,  but  are  still  able  to  dive. 
The  verdant  fancy  they  can  be  caught, 
and  chase  them  until  they  learn  some- 
thing. I  was  incredulous  of  what  I  was 
told,  namely,  that  ducks  and  loons  learn 
to  dive  at  the  flash  of  a  gun  and  are  out 
of  the  way  before  the  shot  arrive.  But 
no  man  can  doubt  it  who  watches  the 
pensioners.  They  survive  thus  until  em- 
boldened by  the  coming  of  the  flocks  in 
autumn  and  then  may  meet  their  fate. 

The  loon,   or  great  northern   diver,    is 
a  frequent  visitor,  and  more  often  in  sum- 
mer than  in  winter  ;  and,  when   seen,  is 
generally  in  the  company  of  a  pensioner. 
50 


His  jet  black  head  and  neck,  his  size, 
and  grayish  body,  make  a  good  mark,  if 
one  has  skill  to  hit  him.  But  I  know  no 
one  who  has  killed  one  in  all  these  years 
I  have  lived  at  the  bay.  If  done,  he  must 
be  fired  at  from  ambush.  He  dives  so 
quickly  that  he  is  gone  before  one  sees 
his  going. 

This  bird  is  so  wild  that  I  have 
never  been  able  to  explain  the  following 
incident: 

One  was  sunning  himself  on  an  accessi- 
ble rock  near  my  house.  I  went  toward 
him  and  touched  his  back  before  he  slid 
from  the  rock.  He  could  both  fly  and 
dive  and  was  no  pensioner. 

Strange  to  say  the  loon  is  often  caught 
both  alive  and  dead  in  the  fish  pound. 
They  paddle  so  close  to  the  long  fence 
of  net  that  there  is  not  space  to  wind- 
ward (they  always  rise  toward  the  wind) 
for  them  to  take  wing,  so  they  paddle  on, 
following  the  line  of  net  until  within  the 
final  labyrinth  from  which  they  can  nei- 
ther fly  nor  dive.  As  often  as  taken  alive, 
one  must  expect  in  handling  them  a 
wound  from  that  sharp  bill.  They  are 
found  drowned,  caught  in  the  net  by  the 
Si 


head  when  diving  after  some  inclosed 
fish  or  in  the  effort  to  escape.  What 
there  is  about  our  bay  which  repels  hi 
summer  the  sea  gulls  I  do  not  know, 
They  abound  all  summer  in  the  Oldport 
Harbor,  and  in  winter  are  abundant  with 
us.  They  are  graceful  but  unmusical 
neighbors,  being  never  so  noisy  as  just 
before  a  storm.  It  may  be  that,  following 
human  example,  they  only  work  for  their 
living  when  they  must.  Oldport  Harbor 
in  summer  is  crowded  with  steamers, 
schooners,  and  yachts,  whose  refuse  they 
fight  for.  They  follow  the  steamers 
closely,  and  passengers  amuse  them- 
selves by  tossing  food  to  them.  In  win- 
ter, however,  vessels  are  few,  and  I  sup- 
pose they  then  visit  our  bay  to  pick  up 
shellfish  on  the  beaches.  With  them  ap- 
pears an  occasional  puffin,  and  even  rarer 
migrant  birds,  such  as  the  great  snowy 
owl,  the  snow  bunting,  and  I  have  even 
heard  of  auks.  Work  has  never  yet  per- 
mitted me  to  spend  a  winter  there.  It 
is  very  probable  that,  if  1  could,  I  should 
see  other  species  which,  having  neither 
commercial  nor  scientific  interest  to  the 
shore  folk,  are  unnoticed  by  them. 
52 


If  the  good  God  should  ever  give  me 
before  the  great  transition  comes  the  lit- 
tle quiet  in  old  age  which  I  ask  at  His 
hands,  I  may  know  more  of  these  than  I 
do  now.  Often  amid  the  Southern  pines 
and  oaks,  where  the  winter  is  almost 
voiceless  except  for  the  sough  of  the 
pine  needles,  the  rattle  of  the  brown  oak 
leaves,  and  the  roaring  of  the  wind,  but 
where  the  sun  and  warmth  are  very  wel- 
come, the  longing  to  know  my  unknown 
Northern  winter  neighbors  becomes  im- 
perious. The  more  masterful  voice  of 
duty  has  thus  far  kept  me  from  the 
quest. 

S3 


VII 


MENTAL    CONTENTS    OF    AN    EGG 

WAS  while  summering 
near  Granite  Bay,  but  not 
yet  knowing  the  joy  of 
that  spot,  that  I  under- 
took to  determine  how 
much  mind  may  be  locked 
up  in  an  egg.  As  I  even- 
tually selected  a  gull's  egg 
for  this  task,  I  embody 
here  the  conclusions 
reached  then  and  formerly  printed,  con- 
cerning the  gulls,  whose  better  acquaint- 
ance has  been  since  made  at  the  bay. 

It  promised  little  to  choose  the  egg  of 
any  native  or  domestic  bird.  Only  that 
wThich  could  be  absolutely  isolated  from 
its  kind,  and  which  could  thus  learn  noth- 
ing from  imitation  or  example,  could 
serve  the  purpose. 

Tor  this  reason  I  hit  upon  a  sea  gull. 

54 


^P: 

|ftjp 

=Kssl 

■■■■^*^3r  T 

wSsfn 

k^fil 

M,i*>, — "O 

§&# c  1 

It  was  very  possible  that  an  egg  just 
hatching  might  be  found  in  Great  Gull 
Island,  at  the  head  of  the  Sound,  or  on 
No  Man's  Land  or  Tuckernuck.  Of  this 
I  could  not  be  sure.  Recalling  an  ex- 
perience in  Maine  in  my  youth,  I  went 
there  certain  to  find  what  I  wanted. 

Mount  Desert  was  known  to  me  when 
the  post  office  at  Bar  Harbor  was  in  a 
cigar  box  in  a  country  store,  and  before 
any  of  the  modern  life  of  that  resort. 
Nor  were  the  outlying  islands  unknown. 
Between  two  of  them  lay  the  "Bull 
Ground,"  the  best  spot  for  cod,  haddock, 
and  halibut  known  to  local  fishermen. 
There  I  had  persuaded  myself  that  I  was 
following  apostolic  example.  It  is  easy 
to  do  that  when  inclination  helps  and 
when  luck  is  good.  I  do  not  know  if  my 
friends  and  pilots  of  those  days,  Captain 
John  Quincy  Adams  Freeman  and  Cap- 
tain Adoniram  Judson  Robinson,  still  live. 
I  would  like  to  see  them  again,  and  mean 
to  talk  it  all  over  in  the  old  schoolhouse 
where,  young  then,  we  had  much  inter- 
esting converse.  Would  they  know  me  at 
sight  now,  or  I  them  ?  Perhaps  it  is 
better  I  should  not  go. 

55 


With  one  of  these,  in  the  early  sixties, 
I  landed  on  outer  Duck  Island  and  found 
the  outer  ledges  covered  with  gulls'  nests, 
from  which  rose  a  screaming  and  snowy 
cloud  of  angry  birds.  Here  I  found  in 
the  bank  of  earth  above  the  ledges  the 
burrows  of  the  stormy  petrel,  the  mother 
bird  so  brave  that  she  would  not  leave 
her  eggs  when  the  burrow  was  opened. 

Thither  I  went  in  the  third  week  of  a 
certain  July,  in  the  eighties,  mentioning 
this  date  that  a  measure  of  time  for  the 
amazing  growth  of  the  gull  may  be  in 
the  reader's  mind. 

The  eggs  were  so  closely  placed  that 
it  was  difficult  not  to  step  on  them.  At 
length  I  found  one  in  which  the  chick 
was  just  breaking  through.  He  was 
transferred  to  an  Indian  basket,  helped 
into  the  world,  and  was  immediately  car- 
ried to  the  main  island  and  thence  by  rail 
to  our  summer  home — three  hundred 
miles  distant  from  his  birthplace,  and  six 
miles  from  the  sea. 

The  cotton  wool  on  which  he  lay  was 

vastly  more  comfortable  than  the  rough 

sticks    against    which    this    downy    ball 

would  have  rested  had  he  not  been  ex- 

56 


iled,  He  was  not  larger  than  a  Brahma 
chick  of  one  day  ;  was  covered  wholly, 
except  his  lower  legs  and  bill,  with  ex- 
quisitely soft  down  ;  had  bright  blue 
eyes,  a  long  curved  bill,  and  delicately 
webbed  feet.  His  color  was  exactly  that 
of  the  egg,  and  this  was  so  much  the 
color  of  the  rock  on  which  it  lay  that,  if 
there  had  not  been  others,  it  could  have 
been  mistaken  for  a  waterworn  pebble. 
For  months  he  invariably  sat  with  his 
breast  against  something  gray  ;  never 
once  against  anything  contrasting  with 
his  own  tint. 

From  his  capture  until  his  death,  more 
than  a  year  after,  he  did  not  see  or  hear  one 
of  his  kind.  His  appetite  developed  the 
moment  he  was  out  of  the  shell,  and  there 
was  no  waiting  for  strength.  On  steamer 
and  train  he  was  quiet  as  to  voice,  but 
alert  even  to  liveliness  on  his  wonderfully 
slim  legs.  He  took  a  bath  in  the  state- 
room basin,  rapturously  flirting  the  water 
over  himself  and  preening  his  down  as  if 
he  were  a  year  old. 

During  the  journey  of  three  days  he  ate 
three  times  his  weight  of  fish.  It  seemed 
as  if  his  lower  jaw  must  unlock,  so  large 

57 


were  the  pieces  swallowed — beyond  any 
visible  capacity  of  throat. 

A  small  pond  and  outgo  of  brook  gave 
opportunity  at  our  home  for  his  food 
and  his  exercise.  From  the  first  he  was 
utterly  without  fear  of  us  or,  indeed,  of 
anything.  He  walked  on  the  grass  as  if 
civilization  had  always  been  familiar. 
Anyone  could  pick  him  up,  and  he  fol- 
lowed us  about,  and  came  when  he  was 
called  by  his  name,  Jumbo. 

He  jumped  the  house  steps,  investi- 
gated the  kitchen,  and  charged  on  the 
house  cat.  He  clung  to  the  children, 
played  with  them,  and  was  effusive  and 
annoying  in  his  affection.  When  the  girls 
stretched  out  on  the  grass  he  nestled 
against  their  necks  ;  when  they  dug  angle 
worms  he  dragged  his  share  from  their 
holes.  He  sometimes  walked  with  me  to 
the  market,  a  pleasure  I  was  soon  obliged 
to  forbid  on  account  of  the  mob  of  small 
boys  he  attracted,  and  because  he  stole 
every  scrap  of  meat  within  his  reach. 

No    living    creature    except    a    dragon 

fly  could   match   him   in   voracity.      The 

children  fished  for  him,  and  in  twelve  days 

he  ate  one  hundred  and  twenty  roach  of 

58 


three  inches  in  length.  In  one  day  he  de- 
voured sixteen  roach,  two  frogs,  and  a 
number  of  minnows.  This  was  followed 
by  two  days  of  apparent  indigestion.  On 
the  third  day  he  was  tempted  with  soft 
clams,  of  which  he  ate  seventeen  promptly, 
a  peck  lasting  him  only  two  days.  As 
he  grew  his  appetite  became  more  vari- 
able, but  on  occasion,  when  weighing 
little  more  than  a  pound,  he  would  snatch 
and  swallow  a  half  pound  of  meat  in  a 
minute  by  the  watch. 

Instinctive  knowledge  of  proper  food 
he  had  from  his  first  day.  Fresh  fish, 
lobster,  clams,  and  oysters  were  always 
welcome  and  only  slightly  preferred  to 
fresh  meat.  He  was  expert  in  catching 
house  flies.  Grasshoppers,  crickets,  and 
butterflies  met  his  entire  approval,  but 
never  would  he  touch  salt  or  tainted 
meat.  A  live  mouse  was  let  loose  near 
him  without  thought  of  him.  No  cat 
could  have  caught  it  more  quickly.  He 
tossed  it  up,  caught  it  by  the  head, 
crushed  it  by  passing  its  length  through 
his  bill.  Dropping  it  accidentally,  he 
took  it  up  by  the  tail,  dipped  it  in  the 
brook,  and  then  swallowed  it. 

59 


Testing  him  as  to  vegetable  food,  it 
was  found  that  grapes  and  watermelon 
were  welcome.  Fancying  that  this  might 
be  due  to  their  ruddy  color,  I  tried  him 
with  boiled  red  beet.  This  he  promptly 
rejected. 

From  the  first  he  had  a  habit  of  danc- 
ing in  a  most  comical  manner.  Unfolding 
his  featherless  wings,  he  hopped  up  and 
down  for  minutes  together.  The  devel- 
opment of  his  wing  feathers  solved  this 
mystery.  He  was  trying  to  fly.  After 
his  wings  were  grown  he  always  turned 
toward  the  wind,  leaping  up  until  he  felt 
the  current  lifting  him.  He  was  an  un- 
conscious aeroplane.  In  this  his  habit 
was  the  same  as  that  of  the  wild  duck. 

For  a  long  time  he  had  but  one  note, 
an  exceedingly  plaintive  piping.  Without 
any  possible  help  from  his  kind  he  de- 
veloped two  others.  One  was  a  laugh,  a 
real  ha-ha-ha.  This  was  the  first  knowl- 
edge I  had  as  to  his  species.  He  was  a 
Larus  Ridibundus,  or  laughing  gull.  The 
other  note  came  under  ludicrous  condi- 
tions. He  picked  up  the  children's  pet 
kitten  by  the  tail  and  ran  round  the  yard 
with  it,  the  kitten  squealing  and  scratch- 
60 


ing  vigorously.  The  gull  dropped  it, 
threw  back  his  head  and  brayed  pro- 
digiously, a  miracle  of  noise  from  so 
small  a  source.  Later  on  a  friendship 
sprang  up  between  the  two,  and  they  often 
of  their  own  will  nested  side  by  side  in  the 
same  box. 

During  the  day  Jumbo  carried  his  head 
down  and  his  neck  extended,  with  a  sub- 
dued aspect,  but  as  evening  came  on  he 
erected  his  head  and  walked  proudly  with 
a  strutting  gait.  I  never  detected  the 
reason  for  this,  but  noted  that  when  he 
saw  us  at  the  window  he  instantly  re- 
sumed his  meek  bearing,  and  kept  up  his 
plaintive  piping  while  we  were  in  sight. 
During  the  day  he  seldom  tried  his  wings, 
but  was  constantly  trying  them  as  the 
day  declined.  This  was  probably  the 
only  manifestation  of  the  hovering  in- 
stinct possible  under  his  conditions. 

This  brings  to  mind  some  of  his  most 
interesting  characteristics.  After  our  re- 
moval to  our  city  home  I  had  constructed 
a  pool  in  the  rear  yard  in  order  to  con- 
tinue the  study  of  his  swimming  instincts. 
Up  to  this  time  he  feared  the  water,  and 
paddled  out  when  put  in  if  he  could  not 
61 


feel  bottom  beneath  him.  When  his 
tank  was  filled  and  he  was  thrust  in  he 
was  terrified,  but  only  for  a  day.  His  de- 
light in  the  water  became  immense.  He 
swam  excitedly  about,  bobbing  his  head, 
fluttering  his  wings,  bathing  thoroughly, 
and  then  went  to  some  sunny  spot  and 
spent  an  hour  at  his  toilet.  He  dressed 
his  feathers  in  a  definite  order.  After 
the  bath  he  was  always  frolicsome.  For 
a  long  time  he  had  a  corncob  at  one  end 
of  the  yard  and  a  cotton  spool  at  the 
other.  For  minutes  together  he  would 
throw  one  or  the  other  into  the  air,  catch 
it  and  run  ha-ha-ing  about  the  yard. 
Sometimes  he  dropped  the  cob  into  the 
pool,  went  to  a  distance,  flew  to  the  cob 
and  bore  it  away  as  older  gulls  do  fish. 
In  the  same  manner  he  snatched  a  clothes- 
pin from  the  maid  and  ran  around  laugh- 
ing while  she  chased  him  to  no  purpose. 

I  am  sorry  to  be  compelled  to  now  de- 
scribe some  equally  interesting  but  less 
delightful  qualities.  Wondering  if  he  had 
some  of  the  less  charming  human  emo- 
tions, I  determined  to  test  this  by  intro- 
ducing to  his  acquaintance  and  premises 
a  gorgeously  colored  mallard  duck.  This 
62 


was  no  sooner  on  his  feet  than  the  gull 
had  him  by  the  head  and  led  him  around 
as  if  assisting  him  to  find  a  spot  from 
which  he  might  depart.  Failing  in  this, 
Jumbo  ceased  to  notice  him  except  as  to 
bristling  his  feathers  when  the  drake 
came  near.  The  pool  was  never  large 
enough  for  both  at  the  same  time.  The 
gull  wTould  not  permit  the  drake  to  -eat 
the  corn  set  out  for  him  until  some  min- 
utes had  passed,  though  he  never  tried 
to  eat  it  himself  or  carry  it  away. 

My  pet,  alas,  had  other  human  traits. 
I  placed  a  mirror  against  a  fence  where 
he  could  see  his  own  image.  Instantly 
his  feathers  bristled  and  he  charged  the 
mirror  furiously  again  and  again.  Meet- 
ing with  nothing  to  bite,  he  went  behind 
the  mirror.  Finding  nothing  there,  he 
walked  away  and  could  never  be  inter- 
ested in  his  own  reflection  afterward.  He 
came  to  have  a  great  aversion  for  a  small 
rubber  tube  which  fed  his  pool,  and  which 
writhed  and  twisted  under  the  water  pres- 
sure. He  fought  this  tube  as  if  some  live 
thing  until  it  was  taken  away. 

I  am  sorry  to  say  that  his  moral  nature 
failed  as  his  size  increased.  He  utterly 
(6)  63 


ceased  to  be  the  sweet  and  playful  pet  of 
his  younger  days.  Whether  it  was  innate 
depravity  coming  to  light  or  the  demoral- 
izing effect  of  a  severe  winter  I  do  not 
know. 

But  certain  it  is  that  the  more  wicked 
he  became,  the  more  interesting  he  was. 
Is  it  true,  as  some  novelists  say,  that  a 
spice  of  wickedness  is  necessary  to  the 
constitution  of  an  interesting  character  ? 
Let  us  hope  that  men  and  women  may  be 
good  as  well  as  interesting. 

He  was  still  playful,  but  no  longer 
"sweet."  To  me  personally  he  was 
usually  kind.  I  fear  he  took  pains 
to  conceal  from  me  the  side  of  his 
nature  expounded  emphatically  by  my 
neighbors.  I  am  still  loth  to  believe 
all  some  of  them  said  of  him.  To 
the  last  he  came  when  I  called,  flew  to 
my  hand,  stood  on  my  shoulder ;  evil 
overcame  him  only  occasionally  when 
with  me.  But  I  fear  that  to  strangers, 
boys,  and  cats  he  was  a  fiend. 

I    was    one    day    watching   him    when 

trying  his  wings.     A  small  boy  dropped 

suddenly  from  the  fence  to  the  ground. 

The  gull  had  him  by  the  leg  in  an  instant, 

64 


and  emulated  the  howls  of  the  boy  by  a 
vigorous  screaming.  "While  the  boy  was 
rubbing  the  pain  out  of  the  pinch  the 
bird  made  a  survey  of  the  boy  with  refer- 
ence to  a  new  hold.  The  boy  started 
homeward  too  late  to  escape  a  bite  on  the 
tendon  Achilles,  the  very  best  spot  for  a 
firm  hold.  The  gull  held  on  while  the 
boy  climbed.  When  at  last  Jumbo 
dropped  off  he  laughed  outrageously  at 
the  boy,  who,  from  the  top  rail  of  the 
fence,  in  a  security  like  that  of  some 
preachers  behind  a  pulpit,  exhausted  a 
vigorous  vocabulary. 

Just  then,  at  another  point,  a  neighbor's 
cat  dropped  into  the  yard.  The  gull 
charged  the  cat.  The  cat  did  not  run, 
but  erected  her  hair  and  spat.  The  gull, 
bristling,  slowly  walked  toward  her.  The 
cat  jumped  clean  over  him  and  was  gone. 
This  was  the  only  time  I  ever  saw  the 
gull  depressed  by  defeat. 

From  this  on  he  had  no  patience  with 
children  except  my  own,  and  with  them 
much  less  than  formerly,  except  when 
they  brought  him  food.  No  dog  sur- 
passed him  as  a  guard  against  cats.  My 
neighbor's  setter  dog  fled  ignominiously 
6s 


when  nabbed  by  the  nose.  Night  music 
ceased  entirely  on  our  fence. 

He  did  one  day  what  has  always  seemed 
to  me  a  bright  thing  ;  more  like  reason- 
ing than  any  other  act  of  his  I  recall.  I 
had  fed  him  with  some  soft-shell  clams, 
putting  what  remained  in  a  paper  bag 
on  top  of  a  wood  pile.  Shortly  after  I 
heard  him  laughing  and  whistling  at  the 
kitchen  door.  He  had  brought  a  clam 
from  the  wood  pile  and  was  asking  to 
have  it  opened.  This  was  evident  from 
the  fact  that  when  it  was  opened  for  him 
he  flew  to  the  wood  pile  and  immediately 
brought  another.  It  was  a  case  of  rea- 
soning as  to  ways  and  means. 

In  the  wild  state  gulls  will  carry  shell- 
fish high  in  air  and  drop  them  on  rocks. 
Thus  I  have  found  sea  urchin  shells  on 
the  top  of  Great  Head,  near  Bar  Harbor, 
Maine,  and  have  picked  them  up  directly 
after  the  gull  dropped  them.  Jumbo's 
performance  was  the  more  remarkable  as 
he  asked  help  for  what  he  could  not  do 
himself. 

Such  things  compensated  in  part  for  his 
fiercer  developments.  My  daughter  was 
tossing  a  small  rubber  ball,  which  bounded 
66 


into  the  tank,  where  it  filled  with  water. 
The  gull  picked  it  up,  squeezed  it,  squirt- 
ing some  of  the  water  down  his  throat,  as 
the  hole  in  the  ball  happened  to  be  oppo- 
site. He  dropped  it  quickly,  but  when 
my  daughter  went  to  get  it  he  again  took 
it,  running  about,  squeezing  the  ball,  and 
now  squirting  the  water  before  him. 
When  empty  he  dropped  it  in  the  tank, 
standing  guard.  Seeing  my  daughter 
coming,  he  snatched  and,  to  her  horror, 
swallowed  it,  but  disgorged  it  in  an  hour, 
as  is  the  habit  of  his  kind  as  to  indigesti- 
ble substances. 

I  am  almost  afraid  to  give  further 
proofs  of  his  courage  and  voracity  lest  I 
seem  to  pass  the  bounds  of  the  credible. 

Late  in  the  spring,  in  digging  up  a 
flower  bed,  a  nest  containing  two  half- 
grown  rats  wras  uncovered — the  gull  was 
at  my  feet  looking  for  earthworms.  He 
killed  both  rats  in  a  stroke  on  each  head, 
crushed  them  flat,  and  swallowed  them. 
The  last  was  more  than  he  could  well 
hold.  It  was  a  half  hour  before  the  tip 
of  the  last  tail  went  out  of  sight  so  that 
he  could  straighten  his  neck  and  recover 
himself. 

67 


That  autumn,  his  second,  I  lent  him  to 
an  artist  who  had  monkeys,  cats,  and 
crows  for  pets.  The  artist  told  me  the 
gull  was  master.  While  with  him  the 
bird  met  his  fate.  Somehow  he  escaped 
to  the  street,  where  he  was  shot  by  a 
saloon  keeper  in  the  leisure  between  his 
early  morning  mischief  to  men  and  his 
noon  endeavors. 

Was  this  mind  different  from  the  human 
mind  in  kind,  or  only  in  degree  ?  We 
know  human  minds  by  the  inspection  of 
our  own.  This  bird's  mind  we  can  know 
through  the  dissection  of  his  brain  and 
the  activities  of  his  organism.  Romanes 
has  shown  us  how,  as  to  other  minds,  we 
infer  what  is  in  them  by  our  knowledge  of 
our  own  mental  movements.  It  was  never 
clear  to  me  that  what  seemed  in  this  bird 
like  conscious  choice  was  necessarily  so. 
It  has  long  been  settled  that  nervous 
mechanism  with  ganglionic  centers  is  suf- 
ficient to  produce  the  appearance  of  co- 
ordinated movement  and  of  choice. 

But  it  is  plain  that  all    the  possibilities 

of  a  gull  were  present  in  the  Qgg;  all  the 

habits,  peculiarities,  and  capacities  of  his 

kind.      He    never  saw  or   heard    another 

68 


gull.     But  he  was  intensely  and  wholly  a 
gull,  and  nothing  else. 

His  instincts  were  sufficient  to  deter- 
mine his  proper  food;  to  bathe  and  dress 
his  feathers;  to  secrete  himself  by  lying  on 
or  near  some  object  of  similar  tint;  to 
soften  with  water  that  which  he  could  not 
otherwise  eat;  to  recognize  as  rivals  and 
enemies  birds  not  of  his  kind;  to  catch 
and  throw  objects  as  wild  gulls  do;  to 
turn  toward  the  wind  in  the  beginning  of 
flight;  to  acquire  all  the  characteristic 
gull  notes;  in  short,  without  example  or 
teaching,  to  become  a  well-ordered  sea 
gull. 

Yet,  as  Mivart  teaches  that  reason  must 
be  denied  to  the  cat,  so  I  must  deny  rea- 
son to  this  bird.  Yet  it  is  hard  to  be- 
lieve that  all  he  did  was  without  delibera- 
tion or  self-consciousness.  Did  he  only, 
as  the  philosophers  put  it,  "sensibly  cog- 
nize external  things,  but  not  intellectually 
perceive  their  being"?  Did  he  "feel 
relations  between  objects,  but  not  appre- 
hend them  as  relations"?  Did  he  "re- 
member, but  not  recollect  "  ?  Did  he 
"seek  pleasure  without  deliberately 
making  pleasure  his  aim  "  ? 
69 


Again  I  say  this  was  difficult  to  believe 
of  this  knowing  bird.  He  appeared  to 
have  all  the  passions  we  know  and  in 
very  human  proportions.  Pride,  anger, 
jealousy,  hate,  ambition,  dramatic  in- 
stinct, affection,  he  surely  had.  Yet  it 
must  be  that  his  share  of  the  soul  of  the 
world  was  less  than  human. 


VIII 

THE    MIND    OF    A    DOG 

E  CAME  to  us  in  a  crate 
a  gift  from  Omaha, 
valued  as  to  contents  at 
fifty  dollars.  He  was 
principally  legs  when  we 
first  saw  him.  Earlier  it 
may  be  that  these  were 
not  so  out  of  proportion  with  his  body, 
and  that  he  could  play  without  getting 
them  tangled  ;  but  this  was  impossible 
now.  The  last  six  weeks  had  gone  to 
legs.  His  long  nose  was  chafed  through 
his  ardor  in  seeking  acquaintances  in  the 
express  car  and  on  express  truck.  This 
ardor  diminished  as  he  grew  older,  reach- 
ing such  pass  finally  that  he  recog- 
nized no  one  outside  the  family  without 
permission.  This  was  not  due  to  any 
ingrained  aristocratic  feeling,  but  to  a 
deep  sense  of  his  duty  to  the  members 
of  the  family,  and  to  the  fact  that  what 
71 


strength  he  had  must  be  in  reserve  for 
their  use. 

He  was  a  thoroughbred  greyhound, 
slate  colored,  with  all  the  regulation 
white  points,  a  star  on  his  breast,  and  the 
tip  of  his  tail  white  also.  There  was  no 
doubt  great  promise  in  his  ancestry,  and 
promise  in  his  ample  and  awkward  out- 
line. From  the  overgrowth  of  his  legs 
he  was  awkward  as  a  cow.  Yet  from  the 
first  day  he  had  that  noble  statuesque 
way  of  sitting  peculiar  to  his  kind,  the 
forepaws  extended  before  him,  his  hind 
legs  close  to  his  side,  and  his  whip  of  a 
tail  carefully  aligned. 

The  naming  of  any  member  of  a  family 
requires  thought  and  consultation.  It 
was  only  after  much  of  both  that  we 
reached  unanimity  as  to  the  name  Gad. 
The  final  reason  is  a  family  secret.  The 
name  was  not,  however,  a  family  name; 
nor  was  it  in  any  way  derogatory  to  the 
son  of  Jacob  and  Zilpah. 

Everybody's  dog  is  the  best  and  smart- 
est in  the  world.  As  a  unit  in  this 
everybody  I  proceed  to  prove  that  mine 
was.  It  makes  no  difference  whether  he 
be  thoroughbred,  cur,  or  "  benchleg,"  the 
72 


universal  fact  is  "Love  me,  love  my 
dog." 

Here  in  Tennessee  no  law  against  dogs 
can  be  passed.  It  is  fatal  to  the  future 
of  the  legislator  who  proposes  it.  The 
cities  and  towns  would  like  it;  some  of 
the  farmers  who  lose  their  sheep  desire 
it;  but  the  man  of  the  mountain  and  the 
cabin  will  have  none  of  it.  Hence  waste 
tracts  and  few  sheep.  Can  the  influence 
of  the  dog  be  better  shown  ? 

Does  not  the  reason  lurk  in  this,  that 
the  dog's  devotion  to  his  master  begets  a 
sense  of  oneness  which  exists  in  no  other 
subhuman  relation  ? 

Hence  it  is  the  other  dog  which  is 
always  to  blame  for  a  fight ;  and  if  he 
snaps,  it  is  because  he  is  teased.  I  think 
it  is  something  of  the  same  feeling,  in- 
creased also  by  fear  of  commercial  loss  if 
good  reputation  be  gone,  that  makes 
every  owner  of  a  skittish  horse  speak  of 
him  "as  gentle  as  a  kitten."  More  than 
once  have  I  been  upset  and  damaged  by 
these  kittenish  horses.  It  is,  of  course, 
possible  that  in  horse  talk  the  owner  may 
use  this  phrase  much  as  David  Harum 
did    when    he   recommended    the    horse 

73 


which    would     stand    without     hitching 
Kittens  can  bite,  scratch,  spit  furiously, 
and  have  running  fits,  which  last  I  know 
to  be  true  of  a  horse. 

Named  and  fed,  Gad  was  shut  up  for 
the  night  in  the  barn.  But  as  he  had 
been  for  five  days  and  nights  on  the  train 
and  constantly  in  human  society,  I  was  no 
sooner  ready  for  sleep  than  his  loneliness 
overcame  him  and  he  lifted  up  his  voice 
in  lamentation.  The  volume  of  this  wail 
suggested  that  his  throat  had  grown  to 
the  length  of  his  legs.  Phebe  has  a  fac- 
ulty for  sleep  to  the  measure  of  genius. 
She  has  denied  thunderstorms  in  the 
night  because  she  did  not  hear  them. 
But  Gad  waked  her.  Her  imperative 
tone  was  excusable.  After  lights  ap- 
peared in  neighboring  houses,  and  I 
thought  I  saw  the  railroad  president 
loading  his  gun,  I  brought  him  into  the 
house. 

Human  society  was  all  he  craved.  On 
a  rug  in  the  corner,  after  turning  round 
three  times,  as  is  the  habit  of  prairie 
wolves  in  treading  down  grass  for  a  bed, 
he  stretched  himself  on  his  side  and  was 
quiet  until  morning  with  one  slight  excep- 

74 


tion.  Doubt  as  to  whether  we  were  still 
in  the  house  led  him  about  midnight  to 
put  his  cold  nose  on  Phebe's  hand.  The 
observations  which  followed,  though  en- 
tirely ladylike,  had  the  element  of  sur- 
prise in  them,  and  awakened  doubt  in  my 
mind  whether  Gad  had  not  better  have 
been  left  in  the  barn.  Yet  he  won  his 
way  to  her  heart  so  fully  the  day  after 
that  always,  until  we  lost  him,  he  slept  in 
the  house,  free  to  wander,  which  he  sel- 
dom did,  and  then  only  when  some  noise 
required  investigation. 

I  write  of  him  as  " Gentleman  Gad" 
because  from  his  puppyhood  he  had  the 
manners  of  a  gentleman.  Little  training 
was  necessary  as  to  his  behavior  in  the 
house.  His  blood  told.  Greyhounds  are 
commonly  thought  unintelligent,  as  com- 
pared, for  instance,  with  collies.  I  can- 
not conceive  of  greater  intelligence,  loy- 
alty, and  obedience  in  a  dog  than  Gad 
showed.  He  certainly  understood  much 
that  we  said,  and  knew  when  we  were 
talking  of  him  though  his  name  was  not 
mentioned. 

That  season  at  Granite  Bay  brought 
him  to  eight  months  of  age,  not  yet 
75 


mature,  but  well  grown  and  as  beautiful 
and  graceful  as  a  dog  can  be.  His  nose 
elongated,  his  chest  deepened,  the  mus- 
cles of  his  mighty  thighs  stood  out,  his  tail 
grew  in  length,  curvature  as  to  the  whole, 
and  with  a  particularly  pretty  curve  at 
the  tip.  He  accumulated  an  impressive 
mouthful  of  teeth.  Not  once  did  he  snap 
them  or  growl  at  any  member  of  the 
family.  All  the  neighbors  and  the  little 
children  came  to  love  him.  With  stran- 
gers he  permitted  only  brief  familiarity, 
keeping  himself  chiefly  for  us. 

Never  but  once  did  he  harm  any  live 
thing  except  intruding  cats  and  imperti- 
nent dogs.  He  killed  a  nestling  which 
had  fallen  from  a  tree  to  the  grass.  He 
was  then  very  young,  and  was  whipped. 
The  next  week  he  found  another,  which 
he  fenced  in  with  his  paws  until  it  was 
restored  to  its  clamorous  mother. 

It  was  highly  necessary  to  train  him  to 
distinguish  between  the  cats  of  our  imme- 
diate neighbors  and  disreputable  vagrants 
of  that  order  ;  soon  accomplished  as  to 
the  distinction,  but  developing  a  compen- 
sating intensity  of  pursuit  as  to  all  of  un- 
known ownership.  As  I  was  not  fond  of 
76 


seeing  these  manifestations  of  his  severer 
nature  I  commonly  screened  them  from 
vision  by  going  into  the  house  when  I 
saw  that  he  was  bent  on  the  banishment, 
if  not  worse,  of  unknown  cats.  Hence 
I  am  not  in  a  position  to  state  what 
happened. 

His  bearing  toward  lesser  dogs  at  this 
time  was  rich  in  patience  and  dignity. 
He  paid  little  attention  to  them  unless 
I  invited  him  to  do  so.  They  found  it 
well  to  go  home  then,  but  went  unhurt. 
Dogs  of  his  size  hesitated  to  come  into 
the  yard  on  seeing  him.  He  took  his 
naps  where  he  could  see  all  who  came  to 
the  gate.  He  looked  steadily  at  such, 
partly  raised  himself,  growled  with  a  depth 
and  vigor  proportioned  to  their  nearness. 
Not  one  resisted  the  final  vigor  of  his 
protest  against  invaders. 

It  was  difficult  to  cure  him  of  digging 
holes  in  the  garden.  Bones  were  very 
precious,  and  he  could  not  think  of  wast- 
ing them  or  of  sharing  them  with  curs  of 
low  degree.  It  was  not  polite  to  take 
them  into  the  house.  He  must,  there- 
fore, bury  them.  His  mighty  paws  hurled 
the  earth  ten  feet  behind  him,  and  a  min- 
77 


ute  was  sufficient  for  a  great  hole.  Not 
naturally  aware  of  the  value  of  flowers 
and  shrubs,  it  had  to  be  taught  him  by 
pointing  out  the  hole,  the  ruined  plants, 
and  by  earnest  exhortation,  by  the  exhibi- 
tion of  a  whip,  and  once  by  the  sting  of 
it.  He  learned  to  avoid  the  flower  beds, 
but  as  to  other  places  the  temptation 
overcame  him  to  the  last.  But  his  bear- 
ing always  betrayed  him  if  he  had  been 
digging,  even  when  we  had  not  seen  it. 
He  went  about  meekly,  with  a  depreca- 
tory air — had  a  marked  tendency  to 
retirement.  When  we  said,  "Gad,  you've 
been  digging  a  hole!"  his  spirits  utterly 
sank,  and  he  would  crawl  at  our  feet 
until  forgiven. 

Not  allowed  to  be  in  the  dining  room 
while  we  were  at  meals,  he  lay  just  out- 
side with  a  sharp  eye  on  our  procedure, 
and  knew  as  well  as  we  when  we  were 
nearly  through.  When  sitting  on  the 
floor  his  head  reached  far  enough  above 
the  table  to  eat  handily  from  a  plate. 
No  one  could  be  less  greedy.  He  would 
wait  until  a  napkin  was  tied  round  his 
neck  and  eat  piece  by  piece  and  drop 
nothing. 

78 


We  could  not  take  him  South  with  us. 
During  the  four  months  of  our  absence  he 
passed  from  large  puppyhood  to  full  dog- 
hood.  We  were  not  a  little  anxious  to 
see  if  he  would  know  us  on  return.  He 
heard  my  footsteps  while  still  shut  in  the 
house,  nearly  burst  the  door  in  his  effort 
to  reach  me,  put  his  paws  on  my  shoul- 
ders, raced  around  the  yard,  jumped  all 
the  fences,  and  "  bayed  a  deep-mouthed 
welcome."  When  Phebe  came  he  climbed 
into  the  carriage  in  his  joyful  frenzy. 

After  this  he  became  more  stately  in 
bearing  and  was  of  wonderful  agility.  At 
my  command  he  would  leap  the  fences, 
but  not  often  otherwise.  He  now  devel- 
oped more  fully  that  sense  of  ownership, 
while  on  our  place,  which  some  dogs  never 
seem  to  acquire.  He  almost  never  left 
the  place  unless  to  accompany  some 
member  of  the  family.  He  would  go 
with  a  guest  when  permitted.  He  per- 
fectly understood  "You  may  go,"  "You 
cannot  go."  If  permitted  to  go,  his  joy 
and  eagerness  were  touching.  The  put- 
ting on  of  a  hat  made  him  tremble  with 
expectation  until  asked  to  go.  Then  with 
a  mighty  leap  he  cleared  the  veranda, 
(7)  79 


was  over  the  fence,  and  waited  at  the  foot 
of  the  hill.  This  compelled  us  to  believe 
that  he  went  as  far  as  he  could  in  order 
to  be  sure  that  he  would  not  be  sent  back. 
He  knew  the  difference  between  prepara- 
tions for  a  walk  to  the  village  and  for  a 
journey.  Trunks  and  traveling  bags 
made  him  as  unhappy  as  hats  and  canes 
made  him  glad. 

It  was  about  this  time  that  he  learned 
to  call  the  children,  who  slept  up  stairs, 
and  afterward  his  mistress,  who  slept  down 
stairs.  Where  he  lay  down  at  night  we 
commonly  found  him  in  the  morning. 
He  waited  for  me  to  bid  him  rise;  fol- 
lowed me  about  in  my  morning's  prepara- 
tions. When  I  said,  "  Go  and  call  the 
girls "  he  raced  up  stairs,  wedged  the 
door  open  with  his  sharp  nose,  and  never 
came  down  until  he  was  patted  and 
caressed.  What  an  air  of  duty  well  done 
he  bore  then !  He  understood  perfectly 
the  difference  between  "Go  and  call  the 
girls"  and  "Go  and  call  Phebe."  He 
made  no  mistake  whichever  was  said 
first. 

This  summer  he  was  promoted  to  sleep- 
ing on  a  lounge,  his  long  legs  having 
80 


been  often  stepped  on  while  he  slept  on 
the  floor.  But  he  never  sought  the 
lounge  until  told  to  go  there,  and  would 
not  leap  upon  it  unless  the  cushion  was 
turned  over,  exposing  its  leather  side. 
He  learned  not  to  do  this  in  a  day. 
When  lying  on  the  floor  I  would  say  as 
to  a  person,  "Gad,  it  is  time  for  you  to 
go  to  bed."  He  would  go  instantly  to 
the  lounge.  If  the  leather  side  was  up, 
he  promptly  took  his  place;  if  not,  he 
waited  until  the  cushion  was  turned. 

When  full  grown  he  was  fearless  as  to 
other  dogs  of  any  size,  as  he  was  far 
from  being  when  a  puppy.  In  his  youth 
he  depended  on  his  speed.  I  shall  never 
forget  the  behavior  of  a  cross  and  heavy 
dog  who  hid  behind  a  box  which  Gad  must 
pass  on  his  way  to  the  village.  I  noticed 
that  Gad  was  watchful,  but  could  see  no 
reason.  He  walked  stiffly  by  my  side. 
There  was  a  rush  from  the  box  which 
nearly  tripped  me.  The  big  dog  leaped 
for  Gad.  But  Gad  was  not  there.  He 
was  running  homeward  as  only  a  grey- 
hound can.  The  big  dog  was  the  picture 
of  astonishment  and  disappointment. 

No  dog  attacked  him  after  he  was  full 
81 


grown,  but  all  kept  at  a  respectful  dis- 
tance. I  had  supposed  him  too  good  to 
fight  ;  too  amiable !  I  wondered  that 
some  dogs  acted  so  queerly  in  his  pres- 
ence. One  collie  in  particular  would 
wade  into  the  sea  up  to  his  neck  and  hiss 
at  him.  Gad  walked  to  the  water's  edge, 
turned  his  back  on  him,  threw  some  sand 
at  him,  and  walked  stiffly  off  in  contempt 
of  such  a  coward. 

Greyhounds  are  seldom  good  water 
dogs.  But  Gad  was  actually  fond  of 
bathing  and  of  swimming,  and  would  on 
hot  days  stand  for  a  long  time  immersed 
save  his  head.  He  delighted  to  be  in  the 
water  with  the  young  people.  Once, 
when  we  had  left  him  with  the  Fisherman 
on  the  island,  he  swam  across  the  Cut 
and  was  found  on  our  veranda.  He  was 
as  happy  as  possible  in  a  boat,  sat  steadily 
in  his  place,  and  more  than  once  swam 
after  the  boat  when  left  behind. 

I  have  said  that  I  did  not  understand 
why  the  other  dogs  seemed  to  fear  him. 
I  supposed  he  did  not  fight  because  he 
was  too  amiable  and  because  he  never 
showed  hurts  from  fighting.  So  for 
years  I  thought  him  above  it  by  reason 
82 


of  the  dignity  of  his  nature.  But  I  was 
set  right  by  the  Long  Captain,  who  told 
me  Gad  was  the  worst  fighter  in  town! 
When  another  dog  snarled  at  him  he 
never  bit  at  leg  or  throat,  but  leaped  into 
the  air,  came  down  to  fix  his  terrible 
fangs  on  the  other  dog's  loins,  and  this 
was  the  end  of  the  battle.  I  confess  to 
both  pain  and  pride  in  hearing  this — 
pain  that  I  did  not  know  as  much  as  I 
thought  I  did,  and  pride  that,  seeing  he 
did  fight,  he  was  able  to  secure  quiet  for 
himself  when  with  me  by  these  private 
contests,  forced,  of  course,  upon  him. 

My  neighbor  the  railroad  president 
had  a  small,  obese,  venerable,  but  most 
faithful  and  affectionate  black  and  tan  ; 
dear  to  everybody  for  his  devoted  attach- 
ment to  the  ladies  of  the  family.  I  have 
known  him  when  crippled  with  rheuma- 
tism, and  asleep  when  they  left  him,  to 
follow  over  the  six  miles  between  their 
city  home  and  the  bay.  As  they  rode  all 
the  way  he  came  not  by  scent,  but  by 
conviction  that,  if  not  at  home,  they  must 
be  at  the  bay. 

This  dog  could  not  bear  that  his 
young  mistresses  should  show  Gad  much 
83 


attention.  He  snarled  every  moment  he 
had  to  endure  it.  Having  as  keen  a 
knowledge  of  the  boundaries  of  his  mas- 
ter's property  as  Gad  had,  the  oresence 
of  any  other  dog  in  his  preserve  grieves 
him  greatly. 

Now  the  peculiar  thing  is  that  Gad 
took  no  notice  of  Frisk's  resentment 
when  Gad  was  on  Frisk's  premises  ;  ap- 
parently he  thought  it  well  within  Frisk's 
rights  to  behave  as  he  did.  His  mis- 
tresses warned  Frisk  to  behave  or  he 
would  be  paid  off  some  day. 

The  young  ladies  were  coming  for  a 
call,  Frisk  with  them.  Gad  went  out  to 
welcome  them.  Frisk  snarled  on  Gad's 
premises.  Gad  shook  him,  set  him  down 
unhurt,  and  walked  stiffly  off  with  an  air 
of  magnanimous  virtue. 

I  wish  we  had  not  left  him  the  last 
time.  The  Fisherman  and  his  good  wife 
were  as  kind  as  possible.  If  Gad  could 
not  be  with  us,  I  knew  he  would  have 
wished  to  be  with  them.  He  mourned 
for  us  when  we  were  gone.  He  was 
much  cheered  by  a  visit  from  our  grand- 
son, as  the  picture  shows,  but  he  pined 
and  fretted  and  developed  pneumonia. 
84 


The  Fisherman's  wife  said,  weeping:  "  He 
was  not  like  a  beast,  but  a  human  being." 
A  physician  attended  him.  Consumption 
followed.  When  I  came  in  the  spring 
he  was  a  skeleton,  unable  to  rise.  The 
doctor  lifted  him  to  his  feet.  Gad  stag- 
gered across  the  room,  put  his  head  be- 
tween my  knees,  after  his  old  loving  fash- 
ion, fell  down  from  weakness,  but  kept 
his  eye  on  me  with  just  the  tip  of  his  tail 
wagging.  A  few  days  after  he  died  when 
I  could  not  be  with  him. 

Neither  my  tears  then  nor  heartache 
now  make  me  ashamed.  So  passed  out 
of  our  sight  the  stanchest  friend,  bravest 
protector,  most  loyal  guard,  most  loving 
companion,  and  intelligent  servitor,  not 
human,  we  ever  had.  His  human  good- 
nesses were  so  many  that  we  still  speak 
of  him  as  ''Gentleman  Gad,"  and  only 
now  have  found  one  exactly  like  him  to 
take  his  place. 

8s 


IX 


SUBHUMAN  NEIGHBORS.      THEIR  WAYS  AND 
TRIALS 


HAVE  already  detailed,  in 
part,  the  conditions  which 
make  our  bay  the  resort 
of  many  varieties  of  birds. 
That  intolerable  nuisance, 
the  English  sparrow,  has 
not  yet  reached  us  in  force 
— nor  will  he  until  more  of 
our  seven  score  houses  are 
open  in  the  winter.  When 
he  comes,  as  he  must,  now  that  the  trol- 
ley brings  us,  as  we  have  not  been  for 
years,  in  close  contact  with  Oldport,  so 
increasing  the  number  of  winter  resi- 
dents, we  shall  lose  some  of  our  varieties. 
We  have  good  hope,  however,  that  the 
purple  grackle,  which  abounds  with  us, 
may  keep  him  away.  It  would  seem 
that  if  other  birds  can  endure  this  wise 
and  handsome  scamp,  they  might  put  up 
with  the  English  sparrow.  Moreover  we 
86 


count  on  the  kingbird,  who  nests  with  us, 
and  is  fully  able  to  keep  crows,  black- 
birds, and  English  sparrows  in  order. 

I  know  of  no  two  ounces  of  vitality- 
containing  as  much  courage  and  leader- 
ship as  the  kingbird.  The  crow,  twenty 
times  his  weight,  holds  him  in  dread  and 
flies  from  him  in  terror.  The  crow  has 
only  to  come  within  sight  during  the 
nesting  to  be  attacked  by  this  mite  of 
energy.  I  have  seen  him  lead  a  flock  of 
blackbirds  in  pursuit  of  the  crow,  and 
they  give  the  crow  literally  a  lively  time. 
They  overtake  him,  pick  at  his  eyes,  pull 
out  his  tail  feathers,  and  probe  him  from 
beneath,  until  I  have  seen  him  turn  on 
his  back,  and  fall  almost  to  the  ground, 
striking  upward  with  his  claws  and  beak. 

We  sorely  miss  a  kingbird  who  nested 
for  years  in  a  pine  tree  which  overhung 
the  sea.  The  nest  was  in  the  outermost 
fork  of  the  trunk  and  not  fifty  feet  from 
the  house  and  forty  above  the  water. 
There  we  could  see  the  eggs  from  above 
and  watch  all  the  faithful  care  which  the 
young  received.  It  was  a  pretty  sight, 
when  the  young  were  large  enough  to  fly, 
to  see  the  mother  entice  or  push  them 
87 


out  of  the  nest  and  lead  them  along  the 
tree  trunk  to  the  rock.  Then  with  a 
morsel  of  food  in  her  bill  she  called 
them  up  to  other  trees  from  which  it 
was  safe  to  teach  them  flight.  But  a 
cat  captured  one  brood  in  our  sight, 
sneaking  out  to  the  nest  in  the  twilight. 
The  next  year  they  nested  there  again. 
But  that  fall  the  tree  was  wrenched  to 
death  by  a  gale  and  they  are  finally  gone. 

The  grackle  is  almost  as  much  of  a 
marauder  as  the  crow.  Great  is  the 
wrath  of  the  thrushes,  robins,  catbirds, 
and  cedar  birds  when  one  comes  near 
their  nest.  The  robin  is  with  us  much 
more  timid  than*  the  brown  thrush  and 
the  catbird.  This  last  slate-colored,  un- 
musical but  alert  creature  is  easily  the 
bravest.  Together  they  generally  are 
able  to  protect  their  nests. 

But  the  appearance  of  a  squirrel  creates 
the  greatest  excitement  in  our  bird  colo- 
nies. We  have  with  us  the  gray  squirrel, 
the  red,  the  flying  squirrel,  and  the  chip- 
munk. The  entire  colony  pounces  and 
pecks  at  these  with  a  most  discordant 
din.  The  squirrels  scold  violently  as  we 
pass,  and  thus  have  their  revenge.     If  a 


grackle  has  a  nest  in  a  tree,  two  things 
are  noticeable:  the  nest  is  absolutely  hid- 
den and  no  eggshells  or  ordure  are  ever 
allowed  to  fall  on  the  ground  beneath. 
I  have  seen  these  carried  in  the  bill  of  the 
mother  bird  and  dropped  into  the  sea. 
This  is  the  habit  of  every  blackbird  near 
us.  But  we  can  often  find  a  robin's  nest 
from  below,  both  by  sight  and  by  the 
delicately  blue  half  shells  which  have 
fallen  beneath.  The  robin  is  a  faithful 
parent.  I  saw  a  mother  robin  pull  a  fat 
earthworm  out  of  its  hole  and  put  one 
end  of  it  in  a  young  robin's  mouth.  Five 
times  the  youngster  choked  by  reason  of 
the  wriggling  of  the  worm.  Each  time 
the  mother  pulled  the  worm  straight  until 
the  worm  was  swallowed. 

The  mourning  dove  has  not  wholly 
abandoned  us,  though  less  frequent  than 
formerly.  Their  nests  are  quite  low  down 
and  are  fairly  well  concealed.  The  moth- 
er bird,  when  one  is  too  near,  will  drop 
from  her  nest  and  flutter  and  tumble 
along,  as*  the  partridge  will,  in  order  to 
distract  attention  and  invite  pursuit.  If 
one  stops  at  the  moment  the  mother  falls, 
the  little  ones  can  often  be  seen  above 
89 


curiously  peering  over  the  edge  of  the 
nest. 

Our  great  wealth  of  wild  and  cultivated 
flowers  secures  us  the  presence  of  many 
humming  birds,  but  not  of  more  than  two 
varieties.  Of  all  the  nests  I  know  not 
one  is  so  well  concealed  nor  so  artistic  as 
that  of  the  ruby-throated  humming  bird. 
It  is  placed  on  a  fork  of  twigs,  is  not  more 
than  an  inch  and  a  half  in  diameter;  may 
often  be  reached  from  the  ground,  but  is 
always  very  difficult  to  find.  It  is  made 
to  resemble,  to  a  marvelous  degree,  a 
knot  or  gall.  The  outer  surface  is  plas- 
tered with  specks  of  gray  lichen  and 
green  moss,  and  is  not  easily  distin- 
guished from  other  warts  on  the  tree. 
The  eggs  are  about  the  size  of  the  small 
white  bean  of  commerce,  and  I  have  never 
found  more  than  two  in  a  nest. 

Protected  by  our  good  will,  these  fairies 
of  the  air  are  tame  almost  beyond  belief. 
Easily  startled  by  any  sudden  motion, 
they  often  come  within  a  foot's  distance, 
sucking  the  honey  of  the  flowers.  Some- 
times they  hover  in  the  air,  turning  the 
head  from  side  to  side;  peering  with  a 
saucy  look,  and  so  close  that  one  could 
90 


strike  them,  if  quick  enough  and  de- 
praved enough.  Many  will  tell  the  new- 
comer that  the  humming  bird  never 
alights  except  on  its  nest.  This  state- 
ment is  incorrect.  In  flight  their  very- 
short  legs  are  hidden  under  their  feathers. 
They  seem  legless.  But  they  often  stand 
on  the  fence  rail  and  on  firm  branches. 
Their  feet  have  small  prehensile  power, 
and  their  legs  seem  little  more  than  a 
half  inch  in  length. 

One  of  our  prettiest  neighbors  is  the 
waxwing,  or  cedar  bird — in  shape  a  copy 
of  the  blue  jay,  but  one  third  his  size, 
quaker  drab  in  color,  and  as  quiet  in 
manner.  He  comes  last  of  all  from  his 
winter  home,  and  is  seldom  seen  before 
July,  when  the  cedar  berries  are  tender, 
but  well  formed.  Being  found  chiefly  in 
flocks,  it  is  only  occasionally  that  wTith  us 
a  separated  pair  builds  its  nest.  He  is 
the  dandy  among  our  birds — always 
sleek,  smooth,  unruffled,  and  to  the  last 
degree  particular  about  his  clothes.  His 
crest  gives  him  an  aristocratic  air  with- 
out truculence. 

This  is  very  much  more  than  can  be 
said  for  the  blue  jay,  who  is  with  us  dur- 
91 


ing  the  spring  and  autumn  migrations. 
Handsome  as  he  is  and  welcome  for  the 
flashes  of  blue  he  makes  among  the  trees, 
I  am  sincerely  glad  that  he  visits  us 
rather  than  abides.  Like  all  the  crow 
family,  to  which  he  belongs,  he  has  an 
unmusical  voice.  Of  this  he  cannot  be 
aware,  as  he  is  incessantly  vocal  and  as 
incessantly  quarrelsome.  He  makes  his 
arrival  known  at  break  of  day,  and  night 
alone  quiets  him. 

I  will  not  say  that  we  have  all  the 
woodpeckers,  but  very  few  species  known 
to  New  England  are  absent -from  the 
pine  creeper,  which  is  only  a  distant  rela- 
tion, to  the  flicker,  who  seems  to  be  an 
aristocratic  and  differentiated  cousin. 
This  handsome  bird  we  see  only  near  day- 
break, and  then  rarely.  Known  also  as 
the  high-hoe  and  clape,  he  is  much  prized 
by  bay  hunters  for  his  bright  yellow  tail 
feathers  and  the  patches  of  red,  which 
give  him  a  touch  of  gorgeousness. 

From  morning  to  night  we  hear  in  sea- 
son the  tapping  of  the  woodpeckers. 
They  seem  to  be  indifferent  to  position, 
sometimes  working  with  head  up  and  as 
often  with  head  down.  I  fancy  we  owe 
92 


no  bird  greater  gratitude.  His  constant 
warfare  on  insects  is  our  security  for  our 
forests  and  fruit  trees.  The  few  holes 
he  bores  are  nothing  to  those  made  by 
the  worms  and  insects  he  devours.  And 
he  is  such  a  gymnast  one  could  spend  a 
day  in  watching  him. 

I  am  not  sure  the  song  sparrow  is  more 
charming  than  his  plain  little  and  almost 
voiceless  cousin,  the  chippy.  Both  nest 
with  us.  If  ever  there  is  an  ounce  or 
two  of  condensed  ecstasy  in  the  world,  it 
is  the  song  sparrow  on  a  fence  picket 
pouring  out  his  delight  over  his  little 
brown  mate  in  the  grass  below.  While 
not  as  friendly  as  the  chippy,  he  loves  to 
be  near  the  house.  But  never  can  he  be 
coaxed  by  crumbs  to  your  feet. 

But  the  chippy  is  friendliness  personi- 
fied. If  there  be  no  cat,  he  will,  if  one 
is  quiet,  come  to  your  feet  for  crumbs. 
I  had  one  which  would  alight  on  my 
knee.  Its  nest  was  in  a  honeysuckle 
vine  not  five  feet  from  the  ground  nor 
ten  from  the  house.  He  is  about  the 
most  diligent  husband  and  parent  I 
know,  and  is  more  solicitous  about  the 
security  of  his  children  when  leaving  the 

93 


nest  than  most.  He  gathers  food  and 
feeds  his  family  faithfully.  These  last 
he  feeds  when  they  are  full  grown. 

The  swallows  are  abundant  with  us, 
but  with  the  exception  of  the  chimney 
and  barn  swallows  I  have  not  followed 
them  to  their  nests;  and  as  I  never  kill 
them  I  cannot  name  the  species  except 
from  their  most  visible  characteristics. 
They  keep  up  their  twitter  over  the  sea 
from  late  spring  to  early  fall,  and  are  as 
angular  and  changeable  in  the  track  of 
their  flight  as  the  insects  they  chase. 

The  most  interesting  thing  about  them, 
which  I  look  for  every  summer,  is  the 
feeding  of  the  young  birds  after  leaving 
the  nest  by  the  parents.  A  long  rope 
stretches  from  my  dock  through  a  pulley 
tied  to  a  stake  whose  top  is  always  above 
water.  Almost  to  a  day  each  year 
broods  of  young  swallows  stand  apart  on 
this  rope  and  are  fed  all  day  by  the 
going  and  coming  parents.  These  young 
birds  are  able  to  fly  to  and  from  the  rope, 
but  do  not  yet  seem  of  full  speed  and 
certain  command  of  wing. 

The  mother  bird,  if  it  be  she,  seems  to 
intend  to    feed    them   in   rotation,  begin- 

94 


ning  with  the  outer  one  to  left  or  right. 
There  can  be  no  doubt  of  this,  as  I  have 
seen  it  many  times.  As  she  comes  near 
they  all  flutter  and  chirp,  but  only  one 
gets  the  food.  But  she  is  thoroughly 
fooled  if  the  youngsters  change  places. 
From  this  I  conclude  that  she  knows  her 
brood  as  a  brood,  but  not  as  individuals. 
The  young  know  their  own  mother.  For 
while  all  the  broods  will  twitter  when  any 
mother  comes  near,  all  but  one  cease 
when  the  mother  reaches  her  own. 

Whether  it  be  intentional  or  not  I 
cannot  say,  but  the  little  fellows  seem  to 
change  places  wTith  rascally  purpose. 
Thus  they  will  fly  out  a  few  feet  and  re- 
turn, particularly  the  one  who  has  just 
been  fed,  and  he  never  returns  to  the 
same  spot,  but  moves  up  and  down  the 
line  according  to  the  position  of  the  last 
one  fed.  In  this  way  last  summer  I  saw 
one  get  the  portion  four  times  in  succes- 
sion. The  next  time  the  mother  fed  the 
one  below  him. 

I  have  found  among  some  of  the  na- 
tives here,  as  did  Dr.  Abbott  in  New 
Jersey,  a  belief  that  swallows  hibernate  in 
the  mud.  But  no  one  gives  proof  of  it. 
(8)  95 


It  is  not  credible  from  their  structure. 
Dr.  Abbott  discredits  it  and  ascribes  their 
wet  appearance,  when  first  seen,  to  their 
habit  of  huddling  together  on  a  roof  or 
branch  during  a  rain,  head  on  to  a  storm. 
I  am  very  far,  in  these  pages,  from 
giving  a  full  list  of  the  birds  seen  on  or 
above  our  place.  Considering  that  this 
is  but  a  half  acre  in  extent,  it  is  surely 
proved  to  be  rich  in  bird  life  by  that 
which  has  already  been  narrated.  All 
those  mentioned  have  been  seen  and 
studied  either  on  the  place  itself  or 
within  sight  from  it.  Of  the  smaller 
birds,  the  warblers,  I  have  not  sufficient 
knowledge  to  distinguish  all  the  species. 
But  several  of  them  nest  in  our  trees. 
The  American  canary  is  a  most  charm- 
ing neighbor  in  appearance  and  in  note. 
Golden  yellow,  with  black  cap  and  wing 
patches,  he  has  a  true  canary  chirp,  but 
not  a  canary  song.  His  flight  is  wave- 
like, and  his  sweet  note  is  sounded  as  he 
rises  toward  its  crest.  The  cowbird  often 
intrudes  her  egg  in  the  yellow  bird's  nest. 
Sometimes  the  nest  and  eggs  are  then 
abandoned,  and  a  new  nest  built  above  it 
as  a  second  story. 

96 


Of  all  my  bird  neighbors  the  little 
active,  not  to  say  fussy,  wren  pleases  me 
most.  He  loves  the  protection  of  man, 
and  builds  his  nest  in  the  queerest  places. 
Thus  one  built  elaborately  in  the  top  of 
the  lantern  which  screens  our  electric 
yard  light!  He  could  just  squeeze  in 
between  the  upright  cylinder  and  its 
hood.  The  heat  from  the  bulb  below 
was  welcome  for  warmth  and  dryness, 
and  they  had  a  happy  season  until  the 
father  or  mother  somehow  worked  down 
into  the  interior  of  the  lantern  and  flut- 
tered to  death  unseen  before  morning. 
They  are  the  soberest  in  attire,  the  most 
industrious,  the  bravest,  and  in  quantity 
most  songful  of  our  smaller  birds. 

There  are  too  many  people  about  in 
summer  for  the  whip-poor-will  to  nest 
near  us,  but  they  often  rest  lying  low 
upon  the  top  rail  of  the  fence,  and  have 
the  instinct  of  lying  where  their  colors 
correspond  with  their  surroundings.  They 
are  up  and  off  at  the  least  alarm,  and  sel- 
dom sound  their  characteristic  note  when 
within  sight.  One  who  found  a  nest  near 
by  told  me  it  was  no  nest  in  any  true 
sense — a  stick  or  two  and  the  bare  rock. 

97 


A  family  of  kingfishers  have  dwelt  for 
many  years  on  our  cliff,  and  are  with  us  as 
early  and  late  as  any.  They  disappeared 
for  one  season,  the  nest  having  been  dug 
out  by  a  lawbreaker.  It  was  astonishing 
how  much  we  missed  their  rattling  cry 
and  their  constant  passing  by  the  house. 
They  suddenly  reappeared  and  burrowed 
near  the  old  spot. 

The  kingfisher  is  not  so  sure  of  sight 
in  diving  as  is  the  fishhawk.  The  latter 
drops  like  a  plummet  from  a  considerable 
height  and  rarely  fails  to  emerge  with  a 
fish  in  his  claws.  The  kingfisher  flutters 
a  while,  as  if  uncertain,  drops  slowly  into 
the  water,  and  quite  often  has  his  dive 
for  nothing.  When  successful  his  fish  is 
in  his  beak.  He  has  a  curious  habit  of 
quieting  his  fish  before  swallowing  it. 
I  have  seen  him  many  times  carry  it  to  a 
pine  near  by,  pass  it  along  through  his 
bill  until  he  had  it  by  the  tail,  and  then 
"slat,"  to  use  a  boy's  word,  its  head 
against  a  limb  until  the  fish  is  stunned. 
No  swifter  bird  except  the  duck  visits  us. 
His  shyness  makes  the  study  of  his  habits 
difficult.  A  crest  which  he  elevates  in 
excitement  of  any  kind  gives  the  appear- 


ance  of  a  head  disproportionate  in  size. 
Sometimes  in  flying  toward  the  house 
he  unexpectedly  sees  some  one  on  the 
veranda.  Then  he  suddenly  changes  his 
course  upward  and  literally  climbs  the 
air  with  feet  and  wings. 

I  recall  that  in  China  the  kingfisher  is 
a  far  more  brilliant  blue  than  with  us. 
Indeed,  he  gives  an  impression  here  of 
being  slate-colored  rather  than  blue.  But 
in  Eastern  Asia  he  is  intensely  and  bril- 
liantly blue.  The  Chinese  and  Koreans 
use  bits  of  his  feathers  to  give  color  to 
their  jewelry.  Thus  I  have  a  Korean 
hanging  butterfly  broach.  The  body  is 
of  silver  gilt,  touched  with  the  blue  of  the 
kingfisher's  feather  and  the  wings  of  jade. 

Dr.  Abbott  found  in  his  neighborhood 
that  some  kingfishers  swallowed  their  fish 
without  killing,  and  others  had  the  habit 
before  described.  With  us.  I  have  never 
seen  him  do  otherwise  than  stun  and 
probably  kill  the  fish.  His  one  note 
seems  to  be  precisely  like  that  of  the 
turning  rattle  which  was  in  my  youth  a 
favorite  toy,  and  which,  in  larger  form,  I 
have  seen  used  in  Holland  by  peddlers  of 
some  sort. 

99 


X 

SUBHUMAN    NEIGHBORS.      THEIR  WAYS  AND 

trials — Continued 


ERY  rarely  have  I  found  a 
dead  bird;  never,  in  fact, 
but  once  in  fourteen  years. 
It  is  probable  that  sick 
birds  hide  away  from  their 
kind  and  die  in  places  of 
difficult  access.  As  such  spots  are  also 
the  haunts  of  snakes,  weasels,  minks, 
and  other  flesh-eating  creatures  their 
bodies  are  quickly  found  and  destroyed. 

But  this  one  case  was  sufficiently  re- 
markable. On  a  walk  through  our  woods 
I  found  a  crow  blackbird  lying  on  his 
back  stiff  and  dead.  As  it  was  in  an 
open  place  I  left  it  to  see  what  happened. 
At  nightfall  it  had  sunk  into  the  ground 
nearly  one  third  its  height.  I  could 
then  find  nothing  to  account  for  this. 
Fearing  it  would  wholly  disappear  before 
morning,   I  drove  a  stake  down  near  it. 

IOO 


The  next  morning  it  was  half  buried, 
and  I  saw  then  what  had  done  it. 
Winged  ants,  as  they  appeared  to  be, 
were  excavating  the  earth  from  under- 
neath, piling  it  up  at  the  sides  for  the 
whole  length  of  the  bird.  Had  it  not 
been  for  the  stake,  it  could  not  have 
been  found  at  all  the  next  day.  The 
ground  was  smooth.  There  was  no 
mound.  The  surplus  earth  had  been 
carried  away,  and  it  was  so  thoroughly 
covered  with  leaves  and  small  twigs  that 
I  was  compelled  to  believe  that  these 
had  been  replaced  to  prevent  detection. 
It  had  been  a  quiet  night,  and  the  mass 
above  the  bird  was  equal  in  quantity  to 
that  which  lay  on  the  undisturbed 
ground.  The  bird  was  still  there,  as  I 
found,  but  most  decently  and  quickly 
buried.  Whether  secreted  for  food  or  as 
a  place  of  deposit  for  the  eggs  of  the 
insects  I  could  not  determine. 

Several  varieties  of  owls  stay  with  us, 
and  some  apparently  all  the  year.  I 
presume  that  the  little  owls  which  haunt 
a  cedar  near  us  are  of  the  variety  known 
as  the  saw-whet.  They  do  not  screech, 
as  did  the   little  owls  I  knew   in  my  boy 

IOI 


days  on  the  borders  of  the  Adirondacks. 
They  do  not  seem  to  be  much  disturbed 
if  we  are  near,  but  make  a  hissing  sound 
as  if  simply  scolding.  It  is  said  they 
live  chiefly  on  the  larger  insects,  par- 
ticularly moths. 

I  have  seen  specimens  of  the  great 
horned  owl  and  of  the  snowy  owl  in  the 
hands  of  hunters.  One  was  yet  alive 
and  giving  his  captor  a  hard  fight. 

Only  twice  have  the  shore  larks  to  my 
knowledge  visited  us.  A  large  flock  re- 
mained four  weeks  last  summer,  making 
their  headquarters  in  a  maple  tree  at  no 
great  distance  from  the  house,  and  again 
this  summer. 

Many  times,  particularly  in  autumn, 
the  "whir-r-r"  of  the  partridge  startles 
us.  He  becomes  neighborly  only  when 
the  pretty  berries  wrhich  bear  his  name 
redden  our  woods.  Not  for  some  years 
has  "  Bobwhite  "  whistled  for  his  mate. 
Possibly  he  is  finally  gone  since  the 
houses  are  so  many. 

The  night  heron,  trailing  his  long  legs, 
passes  over  at  dusk,  "quawking"  on 
his  way.  The  white  crane  and  the  blue 
are  sometimes   seen    stalking   the    lonely 


marshes  across  the  bay;  but  close  study 
is  difficult  ;  they  of  all  our  birds  are 
hardest  of  approach. 

The  snakes,  all  harmless,  seem  to  like 
us  better  of  late.  Instinct  is  more  im- 
perious than  knowledge,  and  few  escape 
death.  The  garter  snakes  ought  not  to 
be  killed  ;  they  lay  their  eggs  in  our 
flower  beds  !  They  never  have  been 
seen  here  rolled  up  into  a  hissing  ball. 
Two  such  masses  I  dispersed  with  a 
stick,  many  years  ago,  on  the  edge  of  a 
wood  in  Bay  Ridge,  Long  Island.  A 
black  snake  crawled  over  my  daughter's 
foot  while  she  was  picking  wild  violets. 
She  knew  him  to  be  harmless  and  went 
on  with  her  work. 

The  beautiful  green  summer  snake  has 
been  more  frequently  seen  than  the  black 
snake,  but  has  not  been  visible  the  last 
few  years. 

Of  lizards  we  see  but  one  species,  pos- 
sibly nocturnal,  called  by  the  country 
people  a  "wiper,"  and  generally  found 
under  the  edge  of  a  flat,  half-buried  rock. 

Having  no  fresh  water  on  our  side  of 
the  bay,  the  speckled  turtle  is  seldom 
seen,  but  some  box  tortoises  are  picked  up 
103 


every  summer.  One  marked  by  a  date 
cut  in  his  under  shell  forty  years  ago  has 
been  found  twice  in  sixteen  years.  Slow 
as  these  are  they  sometimes  run  on  the 
tragedies  of  life.  On  raising  a  large,  flat 
rock  an  empty  shell  was  found  so  firmly 
wedged  in  an  angle  that  it  could  with 
difficulty  be  dislodged.  The  box  tortoise 
never  appears  until  the  dewberries  and 
strawberries  are  ripe.  On  these  and  on 
earthworms  he  is  believed  to  feed.  Some 
hold  that  he  is  one  of  the  scavengers  who 
remove  the  bodies  of  dead  birds  and 
small  animals. 

Elsewhere  the  fact  is  mentioned  that 
he  who  makes  a  winter  visit  to  his  cot- 
tage may  find  a  flying  squirrel  nesting  in 
the  hair  or  cotton  of  his  mattress.  This 
actually  happened  to  my  next-door  neigh- 
bor, the  railway  president.  The  intruder 
escaped  to  the  attic,  from  which  he  was 
drummed  out  and  shot.  The  flying  squir- 
rel is  drowsy  by  day,  but  astonishingly 
frisky  as  night  comes  on.  In  him  also 
nature  anticipates  the  aeroplane.  He 
spreads  out  the  membrane  which  con- 
nects his  legs  on  both  sides  and  shoots 
fearlessly  as  far  as  forty  feet  from  tree  to 
104 


tree.  In  intelligence  they  are  as  much 
below  other  squirrels  as  they  are  below 
the  chipmunk  in  pure  fun  and  playfulness. 
This  last  seems  to  have  no  sobriety  of 
purpose  unless  when  the  nuts  are  ripe. 
He  does  then  give  himself  to  honest 
labor  for  a  while.  But  the  greater  part 
of  his  life  is  given  to  play.  This  is  his 
end  of  being,  and  whether  on  tree  or 
fence  he  is  master  of  tag  and  "hide  and 
go  seek."  Our  hickories  keep  the  squir- 
rels near  us.  Under  the  same  rock  where 
the  box  tortoise  was  caught  and  starved 
was  a  squirrel  storehouse  containing  a 
bushel  of  walnut  shells.  The  squirrels 
know  too  much  to  have  nest  and  store- 
house on  the  same  spot. 

For  the  first  time  we  caught  sight,  this 
last  summer,  of  the  pretty  and  agile  mink. 
The  fishermen  had  often  complained  that 
their  fykes  were  cut  and  fish  eaten  by 
minks,  but  none  had  ever  been  seen  by 
us.  One  warm  afternoon  three  came 
racing  along  the  foot  of  our  fence,  our 
neighbors  following  the  unusual  sight. 
I  was  in  their  way.  They  crawled  under 
the  fence,  dashed  past  me  where  I  could 
not  reach  them,  and  hid  under  some  loose 
105 


stones  in  the  cellar.  They  were  some- 
what larger  than  a  rat,  jet  black,  and 
with  straight,  bushy  tails.  At  home  in 
the  water  as  on  the  land,  they  are  the 
most  agile,  secretive,  and  courageous  of 
our  smaller  animals.  Those  who  passed 
me  hid  themselves  among  the  leaves  and 
bushes  in  front  of  my  neighbor's  house, 
and  could  not  be  made  to  stir  until  al- 
most stepped  on.  It  is  to  be  suspected 
that  they  had  visited  the  Long  Captain's 
gill  net;  that  the  alert  fox  terrier  near 
there  was  on  the  watch  for  their  landing, 
and  that  they  avoided  him  by  taking  an 
unaccustomed  track.  He  would  have  had 
a  bad  quarter  of  an  hour  if  he  had  at- 
tacked them.  They  simply  cannot  be 
shaken  off,  but  hold  until  dead.  They 
have  a  villainous  trick  of  pulling  young 
ducks  under  water,  and  can  bite  fatally 
before  a  full-fledged  duck  can  take  to 
flight. 

Our  woods  and  flowers  harbor  a  full 
quota  of  butterflies,  moths,  grasshoppers, 
crickets,  cicadas,  and  katydids.  Since 
the  electric  light,  polyphemus,  Cecropia, 
and  death's-head  moths  have  stunned 
themselves  against  the  window. 
106 


Whether  it  was  the  annual,  the  thirteen- 
year,  or  the  seventeen-year  ''locust,"  or 
cicada  I  do  not  know;  but  the  park  and 
a  pine  tree  gave  me  the  rare  pleasure 
of  watching  their  emergence  from  sub- 
terranean life,  and  their  birth  from  the 
pupa  to  the  imago  state.  They  fastened 
their  foothooks  so  firmly  in  the  rough 
bark  of  the  pine  that  the  pupa  cases 
remained  for  days.  These  cases  were 
ripped  down  the  back  by  the  pressure 
from  within,  the  cicada  crawling  feebly 
out  with  legs  perfect,  but  the  wings 
strangely  crinkled  and  folded.  As  these 
dried  they  seemed  to  stretch  and  unfold 
of  themselves.  When  fully  dry  the  cicada 
was  off  in  an  arrowlike  flight,  and,  if  a 
male,  began  beating  his  tambourets  on  the 
first  branch  he  reached. 

The  story  must  probably  be  accepted, 
for  it  has  much  authority  behind  it,  that 
the  cicada,  in  the  pupa  state,  spends 
thirteen,  and  one  species  seventeen,  years 
in  subterranean  life.  It  is  admitted  that 
there  is  an  annual  species  also,  and  that 
the  life  of  all  the  species  is,  in  the  sun- 
light, very  brief. 

But  who  has  verified  it  by  watching 
107 


one  individual  or  even  one  colony  for 
all  that  time  and  is  certain  of  identifi- 
cation? An  equally  wonderful  story  is 
told  of  them,  before  entering  the  ground; 
namely,  that  they  do  not  crawl  down  the 
trunk,  but  leap  without  injury  from  twigs 
many  feet  from  the  earth  and  immedi- 
ately bury  themselves,  and  that  this  is  the 
only  way  they  leave  the  trees.  I  wish  I 
knew  whether  the  wind  was  blowing  the 
day  this  was  seen,  and  whether,  while  the 
observer  was  watching  these  jumpers, 
some  one  else  was  scanning  the  trunk 
of  the  tree.  Something  very  like  them  I 
saw  climbing  down  a  hemlock  in  my  own 
grounds. 

If  one  wishes  to  ascertain  how  the 
cicada  makes  his  characteristic  noise, 
squeeze  him  gently  and  feel  the  vibra- 
tion of  a  horny  drumhead  in  his  side. 
Within  his  body  can  be  found  as  good  a 
specimen  of  a  hollow  sounding-board  as 
nature  or  art  can  show. 

No  one,  country  bred,  can  fail  to  recall 
the  terror  inspired  by  the  appearance  of  a 
dragon  fly,  or  "devil's  darning  needle," 
among  a  group  of  children.  We  firmly 
believed  in  those  days  that  he  could  sew 
1 08 


up  eyelids  and  lips,  and  that  on  small 
provocation.  He  is  as  uncanny  in  the 
larval  condition  as  he  is  swift,  big-eyed, 
and  voracious  as  a  mature  insect.  Boys 
know  him  as  "alligators, "  digging  him  out 
from  under  stones  in  brooks  and  ponds, 
and  count  him  the  best  bait  for  bass. 

He  does  not  seem  to  fly,  but  to  dart, 
the  motion  of  his  wings  being  so  swift  as 
almost  to  seem  at  rest.  His  eyes  have 
lenses,  I  know  not  how  many,  and  consti- 
tute the  chief  part  of  his  head,  projecting 
generally  beyond  his  shoulders  and  so 
permitting  him  to  see  in  an  entire  circle. 
His  jaws  are  great  for  his  size,  and  can 
nip  the  finger  sharply,  but  he  has  neither 
sting  nor  poison,  and  if  one  alights  near 
or  on  a  person,  it  is  pleasant  and  instruct- 
ive to  watch  him.  If  he  be  not  the 
most  voracious  creature  on  earth,  I  do  not 
know  his  equal.  He  is  a  cannibal,  feed- 
ing chiefly  on  insects,  and  is  a  true  mos- 
quito hawk.  From  thorax  to  the  end  of 
the  body  he  is  just  a  long,  straight  stomach 
— an  animated,  jawed,  wringed,  and  big- 
eyed  stomach — digesting  as  rapidly  as  he 
eats  and  eating  as  fast  as  he  digests.  No 
doubt  those  we  see  are  of  several  species. 

IOQ 


More  than  seventeen  hundred  are  known, 
some  with  wings  of  seven  inches  span. 
Happily  no  such  terror  visits  temperate 
climates. 

I  had  read  of  dragon-fly  storms  or  mi- 
grations, but  never  expected  to  see  one. 
But  the  unexpected  always  happens.  Sit- 
ting under  our  hemlock,  I  was  looking 
seaward  when  a  score  of  dragon  flies  shot 
by.  In  an  instant  they  were  followed  by 
a  long  stream,  twenty  feet  wide,  which 
poured  over  the  fence  and  passed  on  into 
the  woods  for  over  ten  minutes.  As  these 
are  met  sometimes  at  a  considerable  dis- 
tance at  sea  I  must  believe  that  they  had 
crossed  Long  Island  Sound,  as  was  evident 
from  their  line  of  approach. 

Every  year  w7e  have  a  colony  of  hornets, 
who  never  trouble  us  unless  we  trouble 
them,  and  whose  ways  are  a  delightful 
study.  There  is  a  small  cave  in  the  cliff 
on  which  the  house  stands.  Here,  one 
year,  well  within  its  edges,  thoroughly 
sheltered  from  the  rain,  they  built  a  great 
nest.  They  are  the  original  paper  mak- 
ers, and  the  quantity  in  a  nest  is  surpris- 
ingly large  when  the  various  layers  are 
separated  and  spread.     The  wall  is  some- 


times  nearly  two  inches  thick  with  layers 
a  quarter  of  an  inch  apart.  The  nest 
must  be  both  warm  and  dry.  No  nests 
with  us  are  occupied  more  than  once. 
Our  colony  built  a  second  time  under  the 
eaves  of  the  barn  in  a  far  more  exposed 
and  inconvenient  place.  Their  first  nest 
in  the  cave  withstood  the  storms  and 
easterly  gales  of  two  seasons.  To  the 
heaviest  winds  we  have  it  was  wholly 
exposed. 

We  had  to  pass  the  second  nest  within 
two  feet  when  going  to  the  second  story 
of  the  barn.  Only  once  did  the  hornets 
resent  this,  and  that  when  a  trunk  high  up 
on  a  man's  shoulder  may  have  jarred  the 
nest.  They  are  persistent  and  annoying 
if  one  has  anything  sweet  in  the  hand 
or  is  eating  fruit.  They  return  boldly 
when  brushed  away.  One  must  either 
strike  them  dead  or  change  place  to  be 
rid  of  them. 

We  have  certainly  two  kinds  of  "bum- 
ble," or  humble,  bees.  The  last  name  is 
not  at  all  descriptive  of  their  mental  atti- 
tude, and,  I  fancy,  the  first  is  the  true 
name  given  from  the  loud  hum  their 
strong  wings  produce.  One  variety  has 
(9)  in 


its  nest  in  the  ground.  Its  young  are 
truly  largest  when  first  hatched,  a  fact 
observed  as  parallel  or  coincident  with 
some  graduates  of  high  rank.  The  other 
kind  bores  holes  in  the  sheathing  of  the 
buildings  and  often  makes  a  tunnel  many 
inches  in  length.  He  ought  to  be  of  close 
kin  to  the  borer  worm,  for  which  on  our 
fruit  trees  we  must  keep  constant  watch. 
Like  the  teredo,  or  sea  worm,  his  mouth  is 
a  true  auger,  the  mandibles  being  so  hard 
as  to  "click"  when  struck  by  the  blade 
of  a  knife.  As,  like  the  teredo,  he  grows 
as  he  travels  we  are  often  only  able  to 
find  the  point  of  entrance  by  his  chips  or 
sawdust. 


XI 

REMNANTS 

HE  charm  of  country  life 
surely  does  not  consist  for 
all  in  reverie,  in  hammock 
lounging,  or  unconventional 
existence.  No  doubt  country  pleasures 
are  revealed  to  varying  tastes,  and  no 
one  is  large  enough  to  enjoy  them  all. 
Fortunately,  as  tastes  change  with  the 
years,  new  delights  are  visible,  and  if  one 
by  ill-health  or  age  is  less  mobile,  the 
country  will  still  bring  something  of  its 
intense  interest  to  one's  feet.  Thus  it 
was  with  our  crippled  but  happy  friend 
the  Doorkeeper,  of  whom  the  reader  will 
know  more  later.  Thus  it  is  with  all 
who  have  eyes  to  see. 

Variations  of  eyesight  from  the  nor- 
mal are  unfavorable  to  some  of  the  pleas- 
ures herein  set  forth.  A  nearsighted 
friend  of  mine,  whose  introspection 
amounts  to  genius,  called  my  attention 
to  the  physical  basis  for  an  observer* 
113 


"No  nearsighted  man,  aided  by  the  best 
lenses,  can  observe  or  be  prepared  for 
observation  by  the  attraction  of  his  at- 
tention as  can  the  man  of  normal  eyes. 
He  might  do  something  with  a  micro- 
scope, but  nothing  demanding  a  wide 
outlook." 

But  it  is  not  wholly  a  matter  of  eyes. 
One  must  have  been  brought  to  feel 
himself  an  animal  before  he  takes  much 
interest,  apart  from  profit,  in  the  less 
than  human  life  of  the  world.  Some- 
thing must  have  brought  him  to  see  how 
closely  he  is  himself  related  to  this,  and 
also  have  some  measure  of  how  far  he  is 
above  it,  to  enjoy  such  things  as  any 
country  spot  may  show  him.  It  is  prob- 
ably true  that  the  liking  for  such  studies 
must  be  born  with  one,  for  in  this  respect 
my  experience  shows  that  the  boy  is 
father  of  the  man. 

The  mimicry  of  human  life  by  lower 
creatures  goes  on  everywhere.  If  the 
reader's  patience  lasts  until  the  Giant  is 
known  to  him,  he  will  note  some  wise 
observations  on  this  point  from  that 
worthy. 

So  I  have  seen  when  watching  the  bat- 
114 


ties  of  armies  of  ants  in  our  roadway. 
There  seem  to  be  reconnoissance,  attack 
in  mass,  individual  and  independent  bat- 
tle, taking  of  prisoners,  wounds,  death, 
and  the  rage  of  war.  The  soldiers  know 
friend  from  foe;  they  touch  antennae  and 
instantly  part  or  fight.  Looting  of  a 
kind  worthy  of  the  forces  in  China  fol- 
lows. Whatever  the  other  nest  has  is 
taken  by  the  conquerors. 

One  day  a  mud  wasp,  electric  blue  in 
tint,  was  caught  in  a  spider's  web  on  our 
veranda.  The  spider,  as  heavy  as  the 
wasp,  reconnoitered,  felt  him  to  be  dan- 
gerous, circled  round  him  looking  for  a 
chance  to  spring,  and  found  it.  Tiger 
leap  could  not  be  as  quick  nor  more  fierce. 
He  had  the  wasp  by  the  throat.  While 
struggling  the  wasp  curved  up  his  abdo- 
men and  stung  that  of  the  spider,  who 
shivered,  let  go  his  hold,  flattened,  and 
dropped  dead  from  his  web.  The  wasp 
shook  himself  free,  buzzed  angrily  off 
and  as  angrily  back,  as  eager  to  mutilate 
the  fallen  foe  as  the  old  Sioux  squaws  our 
soldiers. 

Below  my  house  is  a  cliff  nearly  verti- 
cal with  occasional   crevices    and    nearly 


ten  feet  in  height.  A  toad  began  climb- 
ing it.  No  mountaineer  was  ever  more 
skillful  or  patient.  The  action  of  his  arms 
and  legs  was  wonderfully  human.  One 
hand  reached  out  for  a  new  hold  on 
crevice,  grass  blade,  or  twig.  On  this  he 
tried  his  weight,  then  stretched  up  the 
other  hand,  then  one  foot,  then  the 
other,  until  a  little  shelf  was  reached. 
There  he  lay  panting  and  limp  for  ten 
minutes.  Once  more  climbing  he  reached 
the  top  laboriously,  rested  on  the  summit, 
and  then  hopped  to  the  garden,  where  he 
buried  himself  in  the  earth  except  his 
head,  and  refreshed  himself  with  flies  and 
small  moths.  The  common  toads  are 
not  voiceless.  On  the  Fisherman's  Is- 
land there  is  an  open  cistern  with 
boarded  sides  and  a  plank  leading  to  the 
bottom.  All  the  toads  on  the  island 
seemed  to  have  gotten  in,  but  were  unable 
to  climb  out.  They  made  a  most  mourn- 
ful noise,  resembling  the  note  of  the  tree 
toad.  Their  behavior  suggested  a  ship- 
wreck and  panic  among  men.  All  could 
have  escaped  one  at  a  time,  but  the 
crowd  behind  pushed  the  advance  guard 
off  until  they  in  turn  were  pushed  off 
116 


and  the  many  floating  on  their  backs  with 
outstretched  limbs  prophesied  the  death 
of  most.  They  were  there  to  deposit 
their  spawn. 

Much  more  might  I  write  of  my  sub- 
human neighbors  at  Granite  Bay.  But  I 
must  pass  to  the  human  neighbors  and 
discourse  of  them,  and  I  trust  not  without 
charity.  Most  of  those  whose  ways  will 
be  set  forth  have  gone  on  to  the  majority. 
Whether  they  have  lived  without  lesson 
for  others  the  pages  devoted  to  them  will 
show.  To  me  they  were  of  perennial 
interest,  as  they  are  now  of  loving 
memory.  Much  that  they  knew  of  fish 
and  fowl,  of  sea  and  land,  appears  in  my 
account  of  them.  They  were  my  masters 
in  the  craft  of  the  wood  and  the  sea. 

Very  very  dear  to  me  is  the  memory 
of  those  twilight  hours  when  young  voices 
have  beguiled  me  from  wratching  the  fad- 
ing gold  and  the  deepening  purples  of 
the  coming  night,  and  their  sad  sugges- 
tions, into  another  and  more  enlivening 
study.  The  coming  of  the  evening  mail 
finds  all  our  young  folks,  in  their  best  of 
seaside  attire,  gathered  at  the  post  office 
or  near  it.  I  do  not  see  that  so  many 
117 


need  go  so  far  as  the  mail  is  concerned. 
Older  people  sometimes  suggest  that  four 
need  not  go  to  bring  home  three  letters. 
Such  have  forgotten  their  youth.  Others 
rejoice  in  the  vigor  and  beauty  of  the 
young  life  there.  Gay,  bright,  kaleido- 
scopic, merry  but  never  boisterous,  they 
form  charming  groups,  and  as  a  whole 
an  equally  charming  picture.  We  are 
not  without  young  men  at  our  bay. 
They  are  masters  of  all  manly  sports,  and 
our  girls  are  not  far  behind  them  in  skill, 
but  have  learned  how  to  be  athletic  with- 
out being  unwomanly. 

It  is  at  this  gathering  that  plans  are 
made  for  the  next  day  and  sometimes 
plans  for  life.  I  have  noticed  that  when 
the  mail  is  delivered  fours  dissolve  into 
twos,  and  if  it  be  moonlight,  stop  to  rest 
on  the  rocks,  for  it  is  at  least  a  quarter  of 
a  mile  to  the  farthest  house  !  To  such 
the  longest  way  round  is  the  shortest  way 
home!  I  can  see  now,  in  my  mind's  eye, 
some  of  these  twos  walking  hand  in  hand 
in  life's  work  and  joy  and  in  far  distant 
cities.  The  post  office  evening  hour  is 
revered  in  Baltimore,  Austin,  Knoxville, 
Minneapolis,   Los  Angeles,    and   I    know 


not  in  how  many  more.  It  has  been 
so  long  used  that  its  observance  is  of 
traditional  force  and  dignity.  It  is  well, 
if  any  older  people  go  by  mistake  at  that 
hour,  to  be  willing  to  walk  home  alone. 

Granite  Bay  is  dear  to  me  and  mine; 
the  one  spot  on  all  the  earth  we  call 
home.  To  it  we  turn  with  loving  mem- 
ory whether  on  one  continent  or  another. 
Not  alone  for  what  it  has  done  for  us, 
but  for  what  we  have  been  able  to  do  in  it. 

Some  few  spots  there  have  been  made 
ready  by  nature  for  a  home.  But  most 
of  us  have  had  to  conquer  wild  and  rug- 
ged nature  into  our  present  measure  of 
civilization.  We  have  forced  the  forbid- 
ding bowlders  into  cellars  and  retaining 
walls.  When  not  buried  in  hollows  we 
have  piled  them  into  foundations,  chim- 
neys, and  first  stories.  Trees  and  flow- 
ers grow  now  where  rocks  cumbered  the 
earth.  Thither  we  have  brought  woods 
from  many  lands,  and  tiles,  bricks,  and 
marbles  from  the  oldest  civilizations. 
Some  of  us  have  known  it  so  long  that 
we  have  grown  since  our  first  knowledge 
from  maturity  to  the  youth  of  old  age. 
Those  who  have  played  there  as  children 
119 


are  now  bringing  their  children  to  renew 
their  former  joys. 

There  we  have  known  the  delight  of 
building  as  we  could  until  we  could  build 
as  we  would,  rewarding  economy  by  con- 
venience and  comfort.  There,  while  na- 
ture is  prodigal  with  her  wild  roses,  lau- 
rels, and  dogwood,  we  gather  flowers  and 
fruit  from  that  which  we  have  ourselves 
planted,  as  pure  a  pleasure  as  humanity 
knows.  Some  of  these  were  brought  by 
hands  we  shall  never  grasp  again  on 
earth.  It  is  there  that  precious  friends 
now  with  God  have  sat  at  my  table  and 
broken  bread  with  me.  The  sainted 
Ninde,  "who  was  not  for  God  took  him," 
looked  out  on  our  bay.  Many  phases  of 
life,  many  measures  of  gift,  have  there 
come  to  vision  and  enlargement. 

Here  Richard  Hovey,  unequaled  as  a 
writer  of  sonnets,  was  my  next-door  neigh- 
bor. At  the  middle  of  the  bay  Ella 
Wheeler  Wilcox  still  sings  her  glowing 
songs,  and  makes  the  Bungalow  a  lit- 
erary center.  Physicians,  lawyers,  "bish- 
ops and  other  clergy,"  professors,  artists, 
bankers,  railway  magnates,  manufactur- 
ers,   merchants,    statesmen    in    esse    and 

120 


posse,  divinity  students,  Yale  and  Har- 
vard boys,  delight  to  come.  The  dress 
suit  cannot  be  made  to  fit  here.  The 
yachting  cap,  the  straw,  or  light  felt  ban- 
ish the  silk  or  opera  hat.  Duck  displaces 
broadcloth.  The  neglige  of  tennis  or 
golf  is  universal.  The  arms  of  Granite 
Bay  consist  of  a  field  demi  azure,  demi 
vert,  with  tillers,  oars,  fishing  rods,  crab 
nets,  racquets,  and  golf  sticks  rampant. 
Our  conveyances  are  yachts,  launches, 
sailboats,  sharpies,  canoes,  and  rowboats. 
Time  is  measured  by  the  meals  and  the 
mail.  In  no  place  is  it  more  difficult  to 
recall  what  day  of  the  week  it  is,  except 
Sunday,  whose  blessed  hush  we  still  in 
good  measure  know. 

The  days  are  so  full  that  at  nine  the 
windows  begin  to  darken;  at  ten  only  the 
street  lamps  glow.  We  are  never  without 
musicians.  At  ten  a  bugler  sounds  "taps" 
from  some  projecting  point,  and  he  must 
be  ill  or  in  love  who  is  awake  after  that. 

The  early  morning  divides  the  charm 
with  the  moonlit  nights.  The  daylight 
bleaches  the  blackness  over  the  eastern 
woods,  and  before  the  sun  is  up  the  fish- 
ermen  are   on  the   rocks  or  at  the  nets. 


The  selectman,  or  his  brother,  the  Long 
Captain,  passes  in  their  swift  launch,  tow- 
ing the  barge  towering  with  lobster  pots. 
Their  father,  hale  at  seventy-eight,  heads 
for  the  eastern  passage,  sculling  his 
scow,  on  whose  length  the  long  clam 
tongs  rest  and  vibrate.  The  milkman 
comes  in  his  skiff  and  climbs  the  long 
stairs  which  scale  the  cliff.  One  by  one 
the  chimneys  send  up  their  delicate 
plume  from  burning  wood.  The  children 
wait  for  breakfast  by  gathering  shells  or 
playing  tag  on  the  beach.  Conch  shells 
and  fog  horns  call  the  anglers  home  to 
breakfast.  The  jingle  of  the  stage  bells 
speaks  of  the  unfortunates  who  must  go 
back  to-day  to  a  burdened  world.  A  lit- 
tle later  the  maiden  with  her  book,  em- 
broidery, and  cushion  takes  her  place  on 
the  rocks  for  the  morning.  The  weary 
and  the  feeble  sling  their  hammocks  on 
the  verandas  or  under  the  trees  ;  the  en- 
ergetic strive  in  the  tennis  court  or  alley. 
The  housemother  wrestles  with  a  long 
line  of  grocers,  marketmen,  and  fruit  ped- 
dlers, while  the  housefather  looks  on  with 
delight  in  the  incoming  abundance. 

Noon  is  sacred  here  to  eating.     Nor  is 


our  weak  nature  above  the  charm  of  the 
siesta.  Afterward,  if  the  tide  is  creeping 
up  the  beach,  the  bathers  dot  the  sea, 
screaming  for  fun  as  loudly  as  if  stabbed 
or  bitten.  Some,  followed  by  a  boat,  cover 
the  half  mile  to  Half  Tide  Rock  and  back. 
Steady  heads  over  steady  feet  stand  on  the 
top  of  wharf  piles  for  that  second  before 
they  plunge  into  the  sea.  A  little  steamer 
with  a  preposterous  whistle  splits  our 
ears  with  her  call  for  passengers. 

As  the  sun  westers  the  maidens  appear 
in  the  fluffiest  and  prettiest  they  have. 
The  young  men  follow  with  some  evidence 
of  condescension  to  convention  in  collar, 
coat,  or  tie.  Then  the  visiting  begins, 
with  its  delightful  nothings  of  badinage 
and  talk.  Thus  the  twilight  hour,  dear 
to  all  lovers  and  to  all  meditative  souls, 
returns. 

And  so  summer  is  passed — the  time 
of  some  men's  severest  toil  and  of  others' 
completest  rest;  of  nature's  creative,  ma- 
turing, and  soon  fading  energy. 

September's  first  week  sees  some  gone, 
not  willingly,  but  that  the  children  may 
be  in  school.     Those  who  can,  when  they 
are  wise,  linger  until  the  leaves  fall. 
123 


Then  our  bay  is  lonely.  Sky  and  sea 
are  gray  with  November  clouds.  We  are 
not  despairing: 

"Yet  one  smile  more,  departing,  distant  sun! 

One  mellow  smile  through  the  soft,  vapory  air, 
Ere  o'er  the  frozen  earth  the  loud  winds  run, 

Or  snows  are  sifted  o'er  the  meadows  bare. 
One  smile  on  the  brown  hills  and  naked  trees, 

And  the  dark  rocks  whose  summer  wreaths  are  cast, 
And  the  blue  gentian  flower  that  in  the  breeze 

Nods  lonely;  of  her  beauteous  race  the  last. 
Yet  a  few  sunny  days,  in  which  the  bee 

Shall  murmur  by  the  hedge  that  skirts  the  way, 
The  cricket  chirp  upon  the  russet  lea, 

And  man  delight  to  linger  in  thy  ray. 
Yet  one  rich  smile  and  we  will  try  to  bear 
The  piercing  winter  frost  and  darkened  air." 

So  we  pray  with  Bryant,  and  seldom  is 
our  prayer  denied.  The  Indian  summer 
has  delights  worth  waiting  a  year  to  see. 

When  the  snow  falls  the  last  fly  south- 
ward, and  we  are  of  them. 

O  Granite  Bay,  may  we  come  again! 
124 


CHARACTER 
AT    GRANITE    BAY 


XII 

THE    FISHERMAN 

O  ONE  but  himself,  unless 
it  be  his  ever-industri- 
ous and  still  comely  wife, 
knows  with  precision 
when  our  Fisherman  first 
came  to  the  bay.  I  have 
never  asked  him  or  de- 
sired to  ask  him.  He  is  so  much  a  part 
of  us;  of  our  village  and  landscape;  of 
our  meetinghouse  and  waterscape,  that 
we  all  wish  to  think  of  him  as  having  been 
always  here. 

I  have  never  heard  our  oldest  inhabit- 
ant speak  of  a  time  before  the  Fisherman 
came.  It  is  true  that  in  the  month  of 
May  some  sloops  and  sharpies  reputed  to 
be  his  come  in  from  some  harbor  farther 
east.  They  keep  coming  with  fish  all 
summer.  I  seem  to  have  heard  of  a  farm 
(10)  127 


of  his  somewhere  alongshore  to  the  east- 
ward. It  has  even  been  reported  that  he 
has  ferried  cows  across  the  Cut  which  he 
had  driven  from  this  farm,  and  that  he 
has  been  known  to  leave  the  island  and 
go  east  as  often  as  twice  in  one  year. 
This  story  is  in  the  air,  and  of  it,  as  it 
were.  One  may  believe  it  or  not.  I  pre- 
fer not  mainly  because  Phebe  and  I  will 
not  give  any  other  bay  a  shadow  of  right 
to  claim  him.  We  do  know  and  stoutly 
maintain  that  he  is  peculiarly  and  dis- 
tinctively, and  of  right  ought  to  be,  a  fea- 
ture and  fixture  of  our  bay. 

I  always  have  a  feeling  of  having  missed 
something  the  day  I  do  not  meet  him;  a 
sense  of  incompleteness  haunting  the 
evening  hour.  Inspecting  this,  I  find  it 
due  to  the  fact  that  our  paths  have  not 
crossed  that  day,  and  that  we  have  net 
had  our  chat  at  the  crossing.  This  must 
not  be  so  to-morrow;  and  I  stand  at  the 
cedar  gate  at  ten  of  the  morning,  and 
am  seldom  without  the  sight  of  his  tall, 
round-shouldered  figure  and  his  strong 
and  weather-beaten  face.  He  is  on  the 
way  to  the  post  office. 

Let  it  be  known,  once  for  all,  that  at 
128 


Granite  Bay  going  to  the  post  office  is  an 
eminent  social  function.  It  was  so  be- 
fore we  had  a  post  office,  and  mail  twice 
a  day.  In  the  old  time  the  grocery  man 
and  the  butcher  used  to  bring  the  letters 
over  from  Mealford  in  a  cigar  box.  Now 
that  we  have  our  own  office,  and  the  mail 
comes  with  much  certainty,  something  of 
the  charm  of  the  old  days  when  we  never 
knew  when  the  mail  would  come  is  gone. 
When  one  had  nothing  to  do,  and  this  was 
then  and  still  is  the  principal  occupation, 
it  served  as  a  motive  for  gathering  at  the 
grocery  and  remaining  there  until  dinner 
called  us  home.  Promptness  and  regu- 
larity have  taken  away  the  excuses  made 
by  the  men  for  staying  so  long  when  go- 
ing for  the  mail;  but  the  habit  still  re- 
mains with  some  especially  if  there  is  any 
wood  to  cut. 

Of  the  importance  of  this  function  in 
relation  to  our  young  people  there  has 
already  been  discourse.  But  now  I  am 
confined  to  the  assertion  of  the  necessity 
of  going  to  the  post  office  as  it  is  related 
to  those  of  us  who  have  family  cares. 

In  the  summer  we  old  people  affect 
chiefly  the  morning  delivery.  It  is  then 
129 


that,  sitting  on  boxes  and  barrels,  we 
exchange  our  rheumatisms,  our  sick  cows, 
the  scarcity  of  clams,  and  other  calamities. 
It  is  then  that  one  of  our  most  mature 
matrons  cheers  us  with  a  minute  account 
of  all  the  ulcers,  tumors,  and  cancers  in 
the  township,  who  has  them,  whether 
they  run  in  the  family,  how  long  they 
have  been  at  work,  and  how  soon  in 
her  opinion  they  will  finish.  It  is  at 
the  post  office,  if  it  be  early  in  the  sea- 
son, that  we  who  have  been  gone  all  win- 
ter catch  up  with  the  troubles  of  those 
who  have  stayed  behind,  and  thus  hook 
on  to  the  lives  from  which  we  have  been 
for  some  months  cut  out. 

Letters  of  importance  and  packages  of 
weight  come  chiefly  in  the  morning,  and 
it  would  do  anyone  good  to  see  the  ma- 
ture and  solid  company  then  gathered,  of 
which  the  Fisherman  is  a  chief  unit.  From 
him  we  have  the  wisest  prophecies  of  the 
weather,  the  time  of  high  and  low  water, 
whether  weak,  black,  or  bluefish  are 
running  now;  whether  crabs  are  in  the 
Cut;  whether  eels  will  pot;  whether  jelly- 
fish will  foul  fykes  this  wreek;  whether 
there  will  be  mossbunkers  for  lobster 
130 


bait;  whether    the   set   of    oysters  in  the 
river  promises  well  for  October. 

As  the  farmers  about  chiefly  fertilize 
from  his  mill  he  can  tell  who  has  put  in 
turnips  and  buckwheat,  where  cabbages 
are  likely  to  be  found  in  September,  and 
what  effect  the  weather  is  likely  to  have 
on  late  potatoes. 

As  he  buys  coal  by  the  cargo  for  his 
engine  his  views  of  the  probable  price  of 
coal  next  fall  are  strongly  desired  by 
many,  and  form  an  important  factor  in 
the  economics  of  many  homes. 

He  knows  also  whether  there  will  be 
service  in  the  chapel  next  Sunday,  who 
the  preacher  is  to  be,  and  whether  he  is 
interesting  or  not.  On  this  last  point  he 
knows  more  than  he  will  tell,  for  he  holds 
that  we  ought  to  go  to  church  to  worship; 
that  the  dullness  of  the  preacher  has 
nothing  to  do  with  our  duty.  On  this 
point  we  hold  him  behind  the  times.  But 
his  father  and  mother  believed  this,  and 
he  believes  it  and  teaches  it  both  by 
speech  and  silence. 

It    is    seen    from    these    considerations 
how  important  it  is  for  all  of  us  that  the 
Fisherman  should   go   to  the    post  office 
131 


daily  himself,  and  how  we  feel  like  labor- 
ing with  him  if  he  ever  sends  his  hired 
man. 

Our  Fisherman  seldom  fishes  now,  but 
is  the  cause  of  much  fishing  by  others. 
Everything  is  grist  which  comes  to  his 
mill,  and  a  large  grist  conies  daily.  It  is 
when  the  fishing  boats  are  at  his  dock 
that  he  commands  attention,  not  to  say 
reverence.  1  have  seen  him  catch  a  shark 
six  feet  long  by  the  tail  and  sling  it  from 
the  sloop  to  the  tank  ten  feet  above.  His 
handling  of  herring  hogs  is  a  joy,  while 
his  maneuvering  with  a  sturgeon  of  five 
hundred  pounds  is  an  eminent  and  aes- 
thetic delight.  In  the  arrival  of  all  fish- 
ing boats  he  has  part. 

But  whether  it  is  because  he  is  now 
turned  of  sixty  and  has  become  a  man  of 
substance,  and  has  been  elected  to  our 
sanitary  board,  it  is  yet  quite  true  that  he 
seldom  goes  out  to  the  fish  pound  him- 
self. Genial  and  even  talkative  on  most 
subjects,  he  keeps  his  own  affairs  to  him- 
self, as  was  the  way  of  his  forbears. 

That  he  is  a  man  of  substance  is  purely 
an  inference  from  the  extent  and  variety 
of  his  possessions.  He  owns  a  point,  an 
132 


island,  a  peninsula,  a  salt  marsh,  a  sea 
beach,  and  a  fish  pound;  a  summer 
house,  a  winter  house,  a  chapel,  and  three 
cottages  gladly  tenanted  by  the  same 
families  year  after  year.  Of  boats  he  has 
I  know  not  how  many  since  the  hurricane 
hurled  his  Winnie  against  the  foot  of 
his  cliff.  His  horses  and  cows  are  as 
good  sailors  as  himself.  Who  has  not 
seen  them  climb  into  his  great  scow  and 
stand  like  statues,  while  he,  with  a  single 
oar,  sculled  them  across  the  Cut  ? 

I  admit  a  doubt  as  to  his  being  a  man 
of  substance,  thrown  by  his  being  in- 
cessantly at  work,  and  his  wife  with  him, 
and  this  at  a  time  of  life  when  most  of 
us  have  slowed  down  the  engine  and  en- 
dure much  rest. 

It  must  be  that  he  has  inherited  the 
New  England  religion  of  work,  and  that 
he  has  lost  the  ability  to  idle.  I  some- 
times think  so  when  I  see  him  leap  into 
a  cargo  of  fish  deep  to  his  waist  and 
scoop  them  out  as  no  other  can.  This 
idea  grows  on  me  when  I  find  him, 
though  employing  twenty  men,  hoeing 
his  own  wonderful  sweet  corn  on  the 
island,  the  readiness  of  which  for  our 
133 


tables  constitutes  a  distinct  event  in  our 
season.  It  is  further  developed  when  we 
see  him  on  his  way  to  Oldport  with  a 
heavy  load  of  shad,  weak,  or  bluefish, 
according  to  the  season.  It  is  not  di- 
minished when  we  find  him  painting  his 
cottages  with  his  own  hand,  shingling 
his  roofs,  papering  the  walls,  or  hanging 
the  curtains  for  the  coming  tenant.  It 
becomes  almost  a  certainty  that  he  is  not 
well  to  do  when  he  saws  the  hard  dis- 
carded hickory  pound  poles  we  covet  for 
our  autumn  fires,  and  wheels  them  to 
his  neighbors,  anxious  for  their  wonder- 
ful glow  in  the  days  of  the  east  wind. 

The  doubt  becomes  a  conviction  when 
we  see  him  shouldering  a  two-hundred- 
pound  sack  of  fertilizer  and  hurling  it 
into  the  scow,  where  his  brace  of  Polacks 
wrestle  with  it. 

It  is  pleasant  to  us  who  dream  the 
summer  away  to  find  him  always  sympa- 
thetic toward  the  habitues  of  the  ham- 
mock and  the  veranda  chair.  Plainly  he 
does  not  despise  us.  He  looks  as  if  he 
would  use  both  hammock  and  chair  if 
he  could.  But  the  sense  of  something 
undone,  which  is  his  besetment,  restrains 
134 


him  and  he  rushes  on  to  find  a  new  task 
for  his  bending  but  unbroken  strength. 

From  this  point  of  view  he  appears 
to  the  best  advantage  on  a  week  day. 
Vestless,  coatless,  and,  let  it  be  spoken 
softly,  sometimes  shoeless,  he  is  every- 
where and  at  all  times  a  terror  to  the 
shirk,  but  a  helper  to  all  who  have  a  care 
or  are  under  burden. 

Who  has  not  asked  him  for  a  man  to 
help  to  the  barn  the  heavy  winter  stove 
and  found  the  Fisherman  coming  himself 
and  making  light  of  its  weight  ?  Who, 
wishing  a  hickory  pole  set  for  the  hauling 
line  of  his  skiff,  has  not  seen  him  drive  it 
into  the  mud  with  his  own  weight  ?  What 
maiden,  eager  for  a  portiere  or  window 
curtain  of  old  net,  has  not  had  him  for 
an  escort  to  the  beach  where  it  is  spread, 
and  has  not  shamefacedly  been  compelled 
to  permit  him  to  carry  it  to  her  skiff  ? 

What  idler,  needing  hammock  cord,  has 
not  drawn  on  his  stock,  hunted  down 
by  himself  in  the  many  places  he  might 
have  put  it  ?  The  genius  of  order  was 
only  partly  present  at  his  birth.  She  was 
there  for  what  he  could  do  for  others, 
not  for  what  he  is  to  do  for  himself. 
135 


I  like  to  watch  his  expression  when  he 
is  under  burden  or  has  difficulties  to  con- 
quer. It  is  then  hard  as  iron  and  firm  as 
granite. 

So  some  walking  delegate  found  it  who 
tried  to  convince  his  fishermen  that  they 
were  not  well  paid  and  well  treated. 

At  least  this  is  reported  to  be  so.  If  it 
were  as  told  to  me,  I  should  like  to  have 
been  there  on  the  dock  when  it  happened. 
Not  that  I  can  ever  justify  the  unlawful 
use  of  force.  But  if  one  is  determined 
to  use  strength  unlawfully,  it  is  interest- 
ing to  be  on  hand  and  sec  it  used. 

It  seems  that  the  fishermen  thought 
themselves  well  cared  for  until  this  well- 
dressed  idler  in  behalf  of  labor  invaded 
Fish  Island  and  declined  to  leave  at  the 
Fisherman's  invitation.  As  I  have  said,  1 
did  not  see  what  happened,  though  the 
vigor  of  the  narration,  given  me  in  whis- 
pers and  after  dark,  leaves  a  clear  picture 
in  my  mind. 

Must  I  tell  it  ?  One  hand  (O,  can  it 
be?)  seized  a  coat  collar.  Another  (I 
shrink  to  tell  it)  grasped  the  seat  of  the 
man's  trousers.  The  man  shot  into  the 
air,  following  the  parabolic  curve  of  all 
136 


projectiles,  landing  on  all  fours  in  the 
soft  mud  of  the  Cut  !  Knowing  the 
Fisherman  as  I  do,  I  partly  believe  this 
narration  to  be  true. 

One  day  a  woman,  uninvited,  came  on 
his  dock  to  watch  the  landing  of  the  fish. 
Somehow  she  pulled  the  signal  cord  of 
the  engine.  The  heavy  car  of  the  incline 
struck  her.  The  Fisherman  heard  her 
shriek  and  turned,  knowing  then  for  the 
first  she  was  there,  to  see  an  arm  torn 
from  its  socket  and  the  woman  white 
unto  death.  What  fiery  energy  of  help 
he  gave  !  His  arms  carried  her  to  the 
boat.  He  drove  it  across  the  Cut.  He 
carried  her  to  the  hotel.  He  became 
responsible  for  board  and  care.  He 
visited  her  daily  and  saw  her  saved. 

Yet  all  that  winter  he  brooded  over  her 
disfigurement,  as  if  he  were  to  blame,  and 
was  near  insanity.  All  the  more  when 
the  husband  haled  him  into  court  for 
damages  for  which  he  was  in  no  way  re- 
sponsible. Yet,  because  he  had  no  for- 
bidding sign  on  the  dock,  the  law  held 
him  responsible,  though  the  judge  gave 
only  twenty-five  dollars  damage  because 
of  the  woman's  contributing  carelessness. 
137 


The  thousand  it  cost  the  Fisherman  did 
not  trouble  him.  The  ingratitude  and 
the  lost  arm  were  his  burden.  This  was 
the  only  time  we  were  not  glad  to  see 
him,  but  the  coming  of  spring  brought 
the  old  smile  slowly  back  to  the  drawn 
and  agonized  face. 

One  day — and  the  surgeon  told  me  this 
— one  of  his  men,  a  reckless  but  faithful 
Irishman,  slipped  on  all  fours  into  a  tank 
of  boiling  fish.  When  I  saw  him,  after 
weeks  of  agony,  I  found  him  with  a 
trained  nurse  at  the  Fisherman's  expense, 
in  the  Fisherman's  best  room,  and  on  the 
Fisherman's  best  bed. 

It  is  such  things  we  know  that  make  us 
glad  to  see  him  in  the  chapel  on  Sunday. 
The  years  have  softened  the  sounds  of 
this  world  to  him.  So  he  sits  well  for- 
ward that  he  may  miss  no  word.  I  fancy 
from  his  manner  that  in  the  old  days  he 
was  a  faithful  scholar  in  the  singing 
school.  Every  note  has  its  full  time, 
every  word  exact  pronunciation.  It  is  a 
serious  and  weighty  matter  he  has  on 
hand.  He  is  to  worship  through  song.* 
He  is  responsible  for  his  portion  of  the 
bass.  As  becomes  an  elderly  man,  he 
138 


must  give  it  strict  attention.  So,  strong, 
clear  and  not  unmusical,  his  voice  leads 
that  part,  his  shoulders  marking  vigor- 
ously the  cadences.  The  ministers  who 
know  him  often  ask  him  to  pray.  No 
one  of  them  has  a  more  reverent  manner, 
worthier  vocabulary,  nobler  rhythm,  or 
more  aspiring  soul. 

It  is  at  church  that  he  is  at  his  best  in 
dress  and  cheerfullest  in  manner.  I  will 
not  admit  that  his  bearing  at  great  wed- 
dings is  more  so.  There  are  some  of 
Oldport's  town-born  folk  of  bluest  blood, 
whose  summer  landlord  he  is,  who  ask 
him  to  their  weddings  at  church  and  re- 
ceptions at  home.  He  goes  and  his  wife 
with  him.  He  has  unconscious  dignity 
and  his  wife  unconscious  ladyhood.  He 
knows  no  dress  suit  nor  she  a  train. 
But  men  of  light  and  leading  are  glad  to 
know  him,  and  women  of  academic  in- 
heritance find  her  sincere,  motherly,  and 
well-bred. 

For  a  generation  almost  he  has  lifted 
the  collection  in  our  chapel,  counted  it, 
disbursed  it,  and  no  "one  thinks  an  audit- 
ing committee  necessary.  Close  by  his 
unsavory  mill  I  have  caught  him  weeding 
139 


out  charming  mounds  of  flowers.  He 
excuses  himself  by  saying,  "These  are 
my  wife's  pets."  As  if,  dear  old  pre- 
tender, we  did  not  know  his  own  delight 
in  bloom.  He  sees  all  the  flowers  on 
your  place  or  his.  Of  late  he  has  built  a 
greenhouse.  "My  wife  must  have  some- 
thing to  brighten  her  winter." 

Now  that  his  son  has  graduated  with 
honor  at  Yale,  both  in  the  humanities 
and  in  law,  and  has  married  a  wife,  and 
become  a  judge  we  hope  our  Fisherman 
will  take  life  more  easily.  I  doubt  if  he 
can.  The  spirit  of  work  possesses  him. 
Yes,  he  will  work  on  until  rest  surprises 
him.  How  that  may  be  he  cares  not. 
He  has  heard  his  Master  say,  "Leave  thy 
nets  and  follow  me." 
140 


XIII 


THE     GIANT 


H  ME!  only    one  of  the 

three   in  the  photograph 

is     now    living.        I 

have  just    heard    of 

the     death     of    the 

Giant,  and  I  wish  I 

could    have    been    with 

him  and  have  put  some  flowers  on 

his  grave. 

You  may  see  him  in  the  picture  sitting 
on  the  rock  and  holding  a  drill  which 
another  captain  has  just  struck  with  a 
sledge.  The  other  was  not  a  captain  at 
all,  but  some  neighbor  stopping  for  a 
chat. 

If  any  think  it  odd  that  captains  of  the 
sea  should  be  drilling  and  blasting  rocks, 
they  do  not  understand  the  genius  of 
New  England.  That  consists  in  being 
ready  to  do  anything  to  make  an  honest 
141 


living.  If  the  season  has  passed  for 
sailing  a  boat  .and  fishing,  the  season 
has  come  for  blasting  rocks,  laying  foun- 
dations, trimming  trees,  grading  roads. 
My  captains  could  do  one  as  well  as 
the  other,  and  much  beside. 

The  Giant  was  surely  hindered  from 
being  more  than  he  ever  became  by  the 
difficult  conditions  of  his  boyhood.  His 
mind  was  as  strong  as  his  body,  and,  best 
of  all,  he  had  character  of  rough  nobility, 
sturdy  independence,  and  fast-anchored 
integrity.  His  head  was  large — forehead 
broad  and  high,  chin  square  in  strength. 
His  nose  must  some  time  have  had  a 
blow  on  the  bridge,  for  it  was  slightly 
flattened  and  was  below  the  strength  of 
other  features,  yet  no  proof  of  weakness 
whatever. 

Physically  he  was  a  mighty  man  ; 
mightier  even  than  the  Fisherman,  and 
quietly  chuckled  over  his  strength  when 
not  angered  in  using  it  by  the  weakness 
or  unwillingness  of  others.  Nothing 
brought  light  to  his  eye  more  quickly 
than  lifting  weights  which  palsied  other 
men.  I  fancy  he  would  have  lived 
longer  if  he  had  not  been  a  prodigal  in 
142 


energy.  He  was  well  on  in  the  sixties 
when  he  slept  his  life  away.  Death 
wrestled  hard  with  him  for  a  year  before 
he  was  conquered. 

He  had  been  a  seaman,  a  soldier,  and 
was  head  fisherman  at  the  pound  when  I 
met  him.  I  was  rowing  out  to  see  the 
fish.  He  stood  in  the  stern  of  a  large 
scow  sculling  against  the  wind  with  one 
hand  on  a  long  oar,  while  two  other  men 
sat  on  the  thwarts  doing  nothing.  A 
mighty,  quiet  power  was  in  his  wrist,  or 
white  water  would  not  have  piled  up 
under  the  bow. 

It  was  as  characteristic  of  our  Giant  as 
of  our  Genius  that  he  did  things  without 
seeming  to  draw  on  his  strength.  There 
was  no  stress,  strain,  fuss,  or  noise,  only 
quiet  power.  His  voice  and  laugh  were 
big  as  his  body,  and  he  needed  no  meg- 
aphone to  roar  an  order  across  the  bay. 
A  slow  poke  or  an  idler  alone  brought 
out  that  roar.  Of  education  he  had  little 
more  than  something  of  the  "  three  R's," 
otherwise  his  life  must  have  been  differ- 
ent. But  he  observed  closely  and  quick- 
ly, remembered  all  he  said  and  heard, 
and  knew  fish  and  their  ways  better  than 
(11)  143 


anything  else.  He  reasoned  from  fish  to 
men,  as  we  shall  see,  and  did  it  well. 

The  hickory  poles  on  which  the  pound 
nets  are  strung  are  forty-five  feet  long  and 
weigh  one  hundred  pounds.  He  handled 
them  as  if  switches.  It  was  a  fine  dis- 
play he  gave  of  agile  strength  when  he 
picked  up  one,  raised  it  to  the  perpen- 
dicular, dropped  the  pointed  end  to  the 
bottom,  planted  it  with  two  or  three 
dexterous  lifts  and  twists  and  drove  it 
six  feet  into  the  mud  with  his  weight. 
Then  he  fastened  an  oar  crosswise  to  the 
stake,  and  stepping  on  the  oar,  he  waved 
back  and  forth  above  the  water  until  his 
weight  imbedded  the  stake  beyond  the 
power  of  waves  to  move  it.  Then  leap- 
ing on  the  scow,  he  would  seize  another, 
and  so  all  day  extend  the  fence  toward 
the  deep  waters  of  the  Sound  until  the 
half  mile  of  it  was  finished. 

He  was  most  himself  when  the  nets  of 
the  pound  trap  had  to  be  pursed  up  and 
the  fish  brought  to  the  surface.  Heavy 
itself,  heavily  water-soaked,  enclosing 
tons  of  fish,  and  dragged  down  often 
with  jellyfish  and  seaweed,  his  mighty 
hands  lifted  the  meshes  inch  by  inch 
144 


until  one  by  one  the  slide  rings  on  the 
poles  were  high  enough  to  tie.  He  knew, 
before  I  could  see  a  fish,  by  the  color  of 
the  Water,  as  it  seemed,  how  many  fish 
were  there.  His  spirits  rose  and  strength 
seemed  to  grow  as  the  fish  began,  in  full 
view,  to  race  around  the  net,  and  when 
the  net  was  wholly  pursed  and  the  fish 
splashed  and  circled  he  was  as  radiant  as 
he  was  nimble. 

While  the  sloop  was  drawing  along- 
side he  entered  the  enclosure  in  his  boat 
and  stunned  the  larger  sharks  and  all 
sturgeons  by  a  blow  on  the  nose.  Any- 
thing of  no  more  than  three  hundred 
pounds  weight  he  caught  by  the  tail, 
either  with  his  hands  or  a  slip  noose,  and 
slung  it  over  the  net  above  him  into  the 
sloop's  hold.  Then  with  an  immense 
scoop  net  he  shoveled  out  the  smaller 
fish  with  sure  aim. 

I  am  afraid  he  sometimes  swore  at 
some  fish  for  which  his  aversion  was  in- 
tense. Naturally  he  hated  the  venomous 
stingray,  but  not  more  than  he  did  the 
harmless  lamprey  eel.  This  last  he  would 
not  touch,  much  less  eat.  Yet  I  remem- 
ber how  in  my  boyhood  the  farmers  on 
145 


the  Housatonic  pursued  them  with  pine 
torches  at  night,  and  hooked  them  up  as 
most  desirable  spring  delicacies.  There 
was  something  about  the  lamprey's  dark 
flesh  and  lack  of  bone  which  went  against 
him. 

This  brings  to  mind  one  of  his  most 
noticeable  peculiarities:  he  could  stand 
waist  deep  among  stale  menhaden,  but 
sickened  and  fainted  at  odors  only  mod- 
erately offensive  to  most. 

One  autumn,  after  fishing  was  over,  he 
came  to  build  a  fence  for  me,  and  I  be- 
came better  acquainted  with  his  odd  gen- 
ius. It  was  then,  after  shyness  wore  off, 
that  he  discoursed  to  me  of  men  and  fishes. 

"Drat  sculpins,  I  say.  When  they 
are  not  all  mouth  they  are  all  spines. 
Most  of  the  time  they  are  both!  They 
are  like  some  women,  always  shooting  off 
their  mouths  and  sticking  pins  into  peo- 
ple. And  as  for  lampers  (lampreys),  I 
am  glad  they  don't  come  round  but  once 
a  year.  They  are  long  and  smooth  and 
wriggly.  I  am  glad  they  come  early  and 
we  soon  get  shet  of  them.  They're 
neither  fish  nor  eels,  and  they've  got  black 
meat,  and  where  they  ought  to  have  back- 
146 


The  Giant. 


bone  they've  only  got  gristle!  I  calls  'em 
lawyers,  I  do!  They're  like  some  of  those 
shysters  that  sneak  round,  smooth  and 
soft  and  tonguey,  and  it's  '  Mister,  I  would 
be  pleased  to  be  of  some  service  to  you,' 
and  all  the  while  he  is  planning  to  cost 
you  money  and  trick  you  out  of  your 
property,  like  that  fellow  that  put  up  the 
husband  of  the  woman  who  was  hurt  on 
our  dock  by  her  own  fault,  after  the 
Fisherman  had  spent  hundreds  of  dollars 
to  take  care  of  her.  I  don't  want  no 
such  lampers  about  me. 

"I  wonder  what  cunners  is  made  for? 
They're  always  'round  when  you  don't 
want  'em,  keeping  decent  fish  away, 
stealing  your  bait.  You  can't  scale  'em, 
and  they  don't  skin  any  easier.  They've 
got  their  teeth  on  their  lips  (a  fact). 
They're  like  some  folks  'round  here  that 
can't  think  of  anything  only  something  to 
eat!  They're  never  around  when  there's 
work  to  be  done,  but  always  on  hand 
when  there's  eatin'  goin'  on.  Let  a 
clam  into  the  water  and  there's  sure  to 
be  a  cunner.  Set  your  table  and  see  if 
them  gluttons  don't  smell  it. 

"I  tell  you  I  like  a  blackfish.  He's  a 
147 


gentleman,  he  is;  always  well  dressed  in 
black.  When  you  get  one  he's  worth 
something.  He  don't  carry  round  no 
more  bones  than  he  ought  to,  like  shad 
and  bunkers.  Look  at  the  eye  of  him! 
No  sneak  about  him!  He's  just  honest! 
If  he  don't  like  your  bait,  he  lets  it  alone 
and  goes  off  and  chews  barnacles.  If  he 
likes  it,  he  don't  nibble  and  pretend  to  be 
delicate.  He  just  takes  hold  and  comes 
up  on  your  line  surprised  but  willin'.  In 
the  winter  time  he  sleeps  like  a  gentle- 
man with  his  eyes  shut  and  a  veil  over 
them.  He  likes  cool  water  and  cool 
weather.  If  you  want  to  find  him  in 
summer,  you  must  go  out  where  the  water 
is  deep  and  invite  him  to  come  up.  He 
ain't  like  a  bluefish  or  succamaug  (they 
calls  'em  sea  trout  down  South),  up  and 
down  and  all  around  in  everybody  else's 
territory,  and  eatin'  up  other  fishes.  He 
ain't  no  cannibal.  He  lets  his  kind  alone 
and  lives  on  barnacles,  coot  clams,  and 
fiddlers.  We  had  a  man  down  here  once 
who  was  a  regular  succamaug  ;  he  never 
stayed  on  his  own  land  or  hunted  his  own 
birds,  he  just  lived  on  other  people.  You 
could  not   leave   a  rope-yarn    about    but 


he'd  pick  it  up.  He  was  so  mean  he 
would  run  other  people's  eelpots  and 
lobster  traps.  He  was  a  real  succamaug, 
he  was. 

"Them  flounders  takes  me.  They're 
good  enough  to  eat  when  they  get  the 
mud  out  of  them.  But  who  squshed  'em 
flat  and  put  their  eyes  on  top  of  their 
head  ?  They  are  like  some  kind  of  pious 
people — I  don't  mean  no  offense — always 
with  their  eyes  rolled  up  to  heaven,  but 
not  missing  anything  on  earth,  I  tell  ye. 
Religion's  good  when  it  is  a  good  kind, 
but  I  reckon  a  man's  got  something  to 
do  beside  looking  pious.  He's  just  got 
to  be  pious,  and  that  ain't  in  being  squshed 
flat  and  looking  good.  It's  in  being  a 
man,  and  lookin'  straight  at  your  face,  and 
being  what  you  pretend  to  be  and  nothing 
else. 

"  I  ain't  fond  of  shirks  [sharks]  ;  but,  as 
the  old  woman  said  of  the  devil,  he's  a 
master  hand  at  attending  to  his  own  busi- 
ness, and  has  got  the  tools  to  do  it  with." 

Thus  he  had  worked  out  the  resem- 
blances between  men  and  fishes.  His 
theory  of  their  unity,  while  not  Darwin's, 
served  him  a  good  purpose.  You  must 
149 


not  think  he  stopped  work  to  talk.  His 
tongue  was  no  more  busy  than  his  ham- 
mer and  saw. 

He  was  nearly  sixty  when  he  bought 
his  little  place  at  the  head  of  the  cove, 
and  set  out  to  pay  for  it.  It  was  an  old 
house  and  the  ground  was  stony.  After 
he  bought  it  he  seldom  worked  for  others 
except  while  fishing.  His  strong,  stern- 
faced  but  kindly  wife  took  in  washing, 
worked  in  the  garden,  cared  for  pig  and 
cow  and  a  hundred  chickens,  while  the 
Giant  was  on  Fish  Island.  On  Saturdays 
the  fishermen  went  home  at  noon  privi- 
leged to  carry  home  such  edible  fish  as 
they  liked.  So  we  saw  him  footing  it 
heavily  by  to  work  the  day  out  on  the 
place  he  loved.  How  happy  the  two 
were  in  having  a  home  of  their  own!  We 
would  all  have  gladly  helped  them.  Their 
sturdy,  almost  savage,  independence  made 
it  difficult.  If  any  succeeded,  they  were 
sure  to  see  the  Giant  or  his  wife,  before 
the  season  closed,  bringing  a  basket  of 
apples  or  a  pair  of  chickens,  and  leaving 
them  with  the  message,  "Keep  'em,  we 
have  so  many  we  want  to  be  rid  of  'em." 

The  last  year  he  fished  he  worked  as 
150 


hard  as  ever.  The  house  would  be  paid 
for  by  that  season's  work.  It  was  plain, 
though,  that  the  Giant's  strength  was 
weakening.  "I  ain't  good  for  nothin'  any 
more.  I  just  putter  round. "  Yet  he  had 
still  the  strength  of  two  men.  But  it 
was  a  panting  strength,  soon  gone.  The 
fall  found  him  clear  of  debt,  but  his  feet 
were  swollen  and  breath  scant.  I  found 
him  kneeling  by  a  chair,  his  head  resting 
on  his  arms.  In  this  way  he  could  sleep 
a  little.  He  rallied  in  the  spring,  but 
when  the  horn  called  the  fishing  crew  he 
could  not  go.  He  came  to  see  me  one 
day,  halting  to  rest  many  times  by  the 
way.  The  Fisherman  did  not  forget  his 
faithful  Giant,  but  came  to  my  house  and 
ferried  him  to  the  island  to  dine  with  his 
old  comrades. 

The  next  autumn  shut  the  cottages. 
A  thousand  miles  away  I  heard  he  was 
failing  rapidly.  I  received,  on  the  border 
of  the  Indian  Territory,  a  letter  from  the 
Fisherman's  son  saying,  "The  Giant  is 
praying  and  seeking  peace  with  God,  and 
asked  me  to  write  for  your  prayers." 
Assuredly  I  felt  that  the  good  God  would 
hear  him  as  soon  as  me.  But  I  prayed 
151 


for  him  there  with  tears  and  loving  mem- 
ory. I  wrote  him  that  I  loved  him,  had 
prayed  for  him,  and  doubted  not  he  would 
be  heard  of  God. 

As  I  write  these  words  I  know  not  if 
my  letter  reached  him  before  his  death. 
But  I  heard  that  God  came  to  him  in 
peace  and  saved  my  rough,  untutored, 
but  honest  and  manly  friend  with  the 
great  salvation  he  has  promised  to  those 
who  walk  uprightly. 

This  last  summer  I  saw  his  widow. 
She  received  me  without  tears,  but  with 
a  heartbreak  in  her  voice.  "He  had  to 
go,"  she  said,  "just  when  we  had  paid 
out  and  had  got  ready  to  live.  But  we 
gave  him  a  funeral,  the  boy  and  I."  With 
that  she  brought  me  the  funeral  bill. 
"O,  you  need  not  look  surprised.  I 
had  $120  saved  from  washing,  and  the 
boy  had  $27,  and  the  bill  is  $145,  and 
paid;  and  the  minister  had  $5  for  coming. 
We  don't  want  something   for  nothing." 

And  if  I  had  it  in  my  power,  I  would 
carve  on  the  Giant's  tombstone  these 
words  of  the  Fisherman's  son:  "I  never 
in  all  my  life  learned  anything  bad  from 
the  Giant." 

152 


'Sugar.' 


XIV 


SUGAR 

HE  was  a  pretty  little  girl  of 
ten  when  I  first  saw  Gran- 
ite Bay,  her  features  set  for 
so  young  a  child,  with  a 
too  mature  expression,  but 
still  childish  and  assuredly 
pretty. 

I  cannot  now  recall 
whether  I  first  saw  her  on 
the  marsh  searching  for  fiddler  crabs, 
barefooted,  muddy,  but  smiling,  watch- 
ful, and  intent  on  her  work  ;  or  whether 
it  was  at  the  funeral  of  a  playmate, 
clean,  nicely  dressed,  but  tender,  sad  and 
sobbing.  Both  pictures  seem  of  one 
date  after  these  years,  and  I  fancy  were 
nearly  synchronous. 

Her  father's  house  absolutely  hung  over 
the  river,  with  a  foundation  against  which 
the  swift  tides  washed.     It  was  not  a  nice 

153 


house  then,  and  it  is  not  now,  but  better 
than  in  the  old  days.  Her  father  was  an 
old  soldier  with  a  deep  bullet  dent  in  his 
upper  forehead.  I  know  not  whether  the 
ball  was  stopped  by  the  bone.  Perhaps 
the  evil  men  said  of  him  was  the  out- 
come of  a  bullet  groove  through  his  head 
and  the  spoonful  of  brain  which  went 
out  with  it. 

After  all  it  is  not  necessary  to  ac- 
count for  the  father.  The  shore,  be- 
fore it  becomes  a  summer  resort,  draws 
queer  characters.  As  no  two  bays  are 
alike,  so  the  fishermen  of  each  bay  are 
different.  They  can  no  more  endure  a 
crowded  neighborhood  than  could  the 
early  Western  pioneer.  They  melt  away 
in  a  few  years  after  cottages  come. 

I  may  not  say  fully  how  queer  the 
father  was.  He  is  dead  now,  after  two 
years  of  insanity  and  paresis.  But, 
whether  good  or  bad,  responsible  or  not, 
he  had  a  certain  genius.  His  land, 
chiefly  rocks  and  woods,  but  with  many 
cultivable  spots,  never  to  my  knowledge 
knew  either  plow  or  hoe.  Yet  he  was 
never  without  money  and  never  without 
a  half  dozen  dogs,  chiefly  setters  and 
154 


pointers,  whose  noses  were  never  dulled 
by  overfeeding. 

That  excellent  woman,  Phebe,  to 
whose  wisdom  I  owe  much  to  this 
day,  attributes  to  these  dogs  the  disap- 
pearance of  several  steaks,  one  roast  of 
beef,  one  setting  of  eggs,  and  an  entire 
pumpkin  pie.  To  this  night  she  hears 
them  at  the  ice-box  and  laments  my  lack 
of  energy  in  not  driving  them  away. 

But  as  it  is  generally  midnight  when 
she  thinks  she  hears  them,  and  not  being 
absolutely  certain  that  any  dogs  are  there, 
and  being  certain  that  if  they  are  there 
now  they  will  be  gone  by  the  time  I  get 
there  ;  and  being  not  entirely  unaccus- 
tomed to  these  apprehensions,  I  com- 
monly do  not  rise  and  investigate. 

The  father  seldom  worked  at  his  trade 
of  plasterer.  For  those  he  liked  he 
would  work,  but  liking  many  was  not  his 
gift.  He  was  seldom  without  some 
wretched  derelict  of  drunken  humanity, 
who  slept  in  the  barn,  dug  the  clams 
which  were  always  for  sale,  and  split  the 
wood  which  he  sometimes  had. 

But  this  same  father  was  a  master  with 
a  gun.  Woodcock,  quail,  squirrel,  and 
i55 


partridge  he  found  when  others  failed. 
He  did  not  often  hunt  in  company.  He 
was  essentially  solitary  except  for  wife, 
daughter,  and  the  hobo  who  happened  to 
be  with  him. 

He  had  considerable  reputation  as  a 
pugilist.  I  am  not  in  the  way  of  know- 
ing the  truth  of  this  except  that  I  once 
saw  a  neighbor  of  mine,  as  queer  as  the 
father,  going  home  after  an  interview 
with  him.  His  eye  was  black  and  his 
nose  cut.  He  was  also  replacing  one  or 
two  teeth.  As  the  men  were  alone  dur- 
ing the  interview  we  never  knew  its  occa- 
sion, inspiration,  or  duration,  or  in  fact 
had  that  adequate  information  to  which, 
as  neighbors,  we  felt  entitled. 

The  mother  had  her  peculiarities  also. 
Half  blind,  she  stumbled  around  the 
place  and  did  most  of  the  work  which 
was  done,  which  did  not  appear  to  be 
great  in  quantity  or  effectiveness. 

Into  such  surroundings  fate  projected  a 
little  girl  so  sweet  to  the  father's  eye 
that  he  named  her  " Sugar,"  and  called 
her  so  to  womanhood.  Her  first  ten 
years  were  before  I  knew  her.  Of  these 
the  neighbors  speak  with  kindness  as  of  a 
156 


\ 


pretty  tomboy  who  knew  no  reason  why 
she  could  not  play  all  the  games  and  do 
all  the  dares  of  the  boys  One  told  me 
that  she  would  also  swear,  like  the  tra- 
ditional pirate,  on  sudden  provocation, 
but  added,  "She  always  recovered  her- 
self and  clapped  her  hand  over  her  mouth 
trying  to  prevent  it." 

But  after  the  days  of  the  fiddler  crabs 
or  the  funeral  her  personality  made  her  a 
chief  figure  at  the  bay.  She  was  of  the 
Sunday  school,  the  prayer  meeting,  and 
the  Sabbath  service,  neat  in  dress  and 
clean  to  daintiness.  She  neither  courted 
notice  nor  declined  it.  Her  air  was  of 
knowing  her  worth  and  that  there  could 
be  no  question  of  it.  Everyone  passed  her 
house  on  the  road  to  the  bay,  and  many 
have  heard  her  shrill  wrath  over  profane 
and  indecent  language.  Her  father  in 
this  regard  walked  meekly  in  her  pres- 
ence. He  was  not  one  moment  safe 
from  her  rebuke,  nor  did  others  attempt 
it  more  than  once. 

As  she  entered  her  teens  the  place 
began  to  "slick  up."  The  rubbish  heaps 
diminished  or  disappeared.  The  dogs 
kept    more   to   their  kennels;    the  house 

157 


knew  a  coat  of  paint.  There  was  a  gen- 
uine sensation  for  three  years  when  an 
organ,  a  sewing  machine,  and  piano  suc- 
cessively arrived.  Lace  curtains  came  to 
the  windows,  which  now  knew  a  weekly 
washing. 

Yet  Sugar  did  not  grow  into  a  spurious 
fine  lady.  You  could  see  her  digging 
clams  on  the  bar,  or  loading  and  deliver- 
ing wood,  piling  it  if  you  would  let  her 
do  it.  As  to  boats,  she  rowed  like  a 
fisherman  and  sailed  like  a  Deer  Islander. 

Somehow  the  old  box  wagon  gave  place 
to  a  top  buggy,  and  in  the  neatness  and 
glory  of  a  healthy  young  womanhood 
she  often  drove  her  subdued  but  radiant 
father  to  Oldport,  full  mistress  of  a  frac- 
tious horse  and  paternal  behavior.  I 
heard  this  story  one  day  from  a  neigh- 
bor who  knew  us  both.  She  was  walk- 
ing along  after  her  jaunty  fashion  in 
Oldport's  principal  street,  when  some 
loafer  hissed  an  insulting  word  in  her  ear. 
She  had  him  by  the  arm  in  an  instant, 
and  after  horsewhipping  him,  handed  him 
over  to  the  policeman  and  told  him  she 
would  be  on  hand  when  she  was  wanted. 
This  was  very  like  her, 
158 


More  and  more  those  who  had  busi- 
ness at  the  house  found  it  best  to  see 
her  first,  whether  in  need  of  clams,  kin- 
dling wood,  ducks,  or  woodcock.  Yet  she 
always  said,  "You  can  have  it  if  father 
is  willing;"  or,  "I  must  see  mother  first." 
It  is  to  be  suspected  from  what  I  have 
heard  that  she  was  her  father's- boy  as 
well,  as  his  girl,  and  did  some  things  not 
supposed  to  be  within  the  range  of  a 
woman's  accomplishments.  Thus  it  is 
said  that  a  strange  young  man,  none 
other  would  have  dared  it,  attempted  to 
borrow  without  permission,  and  after  be- 
ing forbidden,  one  of  her  father's  boats. 
I  can  believe  what  I  heard,  namely,  that 
in  flying  hair  and  bare  feet  she  leaped 
over  the  wall,  threw  the  youth  into  the 
mud,  fastened  the  boat  again,  and  stopped 
forever  such  raids.  It  was  also  whispered 
to  me  that  the  young  man  put  salt  pork 
on  his  eye,  and  bound  his  head  with  a 
bandanna  handkerchief.  As  I  did  not  see 
this  I  refrain  from  stating  it. 

It  is   possibly   six   summers    since  we 

began  to  see  a  young  engineer  much  in 

her  company,  and  to  rejoice  that  another 

love  was  coming  into  her  life.     The  wed- 

(12)  J59 


ding  was  not  long  delayed.  By  this  time 
the  mother  was  almost  wholly  blind,  and 
the  father's  old  wound  opened,  and  they 
could  not  possibly  have  lived  without 
Sugar.  The  daughter  was  not  lost  in 
the  wife.  She  only  took  another  life 
under  her  wing.  But  like  a  matron,  with 
a  strong  arm  between  her  and  the  world, 
she  was  now  more  domestic,  and  found 
time  to  soften  and  sweeten  the  strong 
and  shrill  voice  of  her  singing  maiden- 
hood. She  further  found  time  to  freshen 
and  order  aright  the  old  home.  She  was 
perhaps,  as  fitting  a  matron's  dignity,  a 
trifle  more  commanding  in  the  direction  of 
the  family  life,  and  even  went  so  far  that 
a  flower  bed  appeared  on  the  rocks  be- 
tween the  house  and  the  river,  while  a 
box  of  geraniums  flamed  in  the  window, 
and  a  new  and  wider  veranda  fronted  the 
house. 

It  was  about  this  time,  if  memory  holds, 
that  her  blind  mother  stumbled  into  the 
whirlpool  near  the  dyke,  where  some  have 
fallen  beyond  rescue.  Sugar  went  after, 
headfirst,  held  her  mother  up  until  both 
were  swept  to  a  quiet  eddy,  and  so 
dragged  her  mother  back  to  life. 
160 


Then  an  autumn  came  on,  bounteous 
in  fish  and  high  in  wind.  Sugar's  hus- 
band with  a  friend  went  out  in  a  skiff  be- 
yond the  bar.  Late  that  day  the  boat 
came  ashore  empty  but  for  a  single  oar. 
How  it  happened  only  God  and  the  angels 
know.  Sugar,  wild-eyed  and  tearless, 
and  the  father  after  her,  haunted  for  days 
beach,  bar,  and  cove.  I  do  not  know  if 
she  or  another  found  him.  I  like  to 
think  that  love  had  its  reward.  But 
when  the  father  saw  the  swollen  horror 
which  drifted  ashore  his  breaking  mind 
went  out.  Ever  after  he  was  sometimes 
a  brooding  and  sometimes  a  noisy  trouble. 
So  the  blind  mother  and  the  bedlam  fa- 
ther sat  together  in  the  kitchen,  and  Su- 
gar cared  for  both. 

I  had  not  seen  her  from  her  wedding 
day  until  after  the  tragedy.  She  now  had 
hard  lines  about  her  mouth,  and  was  a 
trifle  less  careful  in  dress.  She  wore  a 
look  of  defeat,  but  not  of  despair,  aging 
her  a  little.  She  never  spoke  to  me  of 
her  trouble.  She  became  a  very  busy 
woman,  as  is  fitting  when  there  is  only 
one  pair  of  arms  to  care  for  three.  So 
we  saw  her  digging  clams  again,  loading 
161 


and  delivering  wood,  carting  stone  and 
earth  pried  out  and  dug  by  her  own  hands. 
Her  father  came  home  from  the  asylum 
only  to  waste  a  bushel  of  oats  on  a  ten- 
foot  patch,  and  to  drivel  and  rage  as  is 
the  way  of  his  sort.  He  went  quietly 
back  when  Sugar  went  with  him.  She 
told  me  of  his  slow  decay.  With  the 
charity  of  love  she  said:  "Papa  was  al- 
ways very  good,  but,  do  you  know,  he 
has  become  very  religious.  He  talks  all 
the  time  about  God.  Wasn't  it  a  funny 
thing  he  said  to  me,  '  Sugar,  I  have  wor- 
shiped God.  Sugar,  you've  been  my 
God!'"  He  was  not  as  crazy  in  this  as 
his  daughter  thought. 

So  this  wild  man  became  gentle  at  last. 
A  thousand  miles  away  I  hear  he  is  dead, 
and  I  wonder  how  Sugar  and  the  blind 
mother  get  on  these  wintry  days. 

Often  I  have  feared  that  poverty  might 
breed  despair,  and  that  her  burdens  might 
rush  her  with  a  sudden  plunge  into  the 
depths  she  has  always  been  so  near.  A 
thousand  pities  if  having  had  such  strength 
it  should  at  last  fail. 

If  failure  comes,  let  charity  abide.  It 
will  only  prove  how  hard  it  is  to  rise  per- 
162 


manently  above  environment,  and  how 
much  we  all  owe,  as  to  conduct,  to  the 
homes  in  which  we  live  and  the  society 
in  which  we  move. 

But  I  will  believe  she  will  keep  her  feet, 
and  show,  with  faults  and  relics  of  imper- 
fect training,  that  the  strong  and  good 
fiber  is  victorious. 

163 


XV 

OUR    GENIUS 


HAVE  already  spoken  ot 
our  Genius.  Whether  in 
his  case  it  is  the  absorption 
of  our  atmosphere  or  an 
inheritance  I  do  not  know, 
but  that  he  is  a  genius 
no  man  who  knows  him 
doubts. 

One  may  well  and  easily 
absorb  handiness  by  living 
in  New  England.  The  Connecticut  Yan- 
kee has  as  distinct  a  gift  for  doing  many 
things  well,  and  doing  all  he  does  with 
small  expenditure  of  strength,  as  the  old 
Greeks  had  for  art. 

Many  think  that  the  Yankee  loves  work 
for  work's  sake.  I  must  be  permitted  to 
hold  a  different  opinion.  His  inventive 
genius  is  the  outcome  of  his  indisposition 
to  work  hard.  On  this  account  he  dreams 
164 


out  a  machine  which  will  do  the  work  for 
him  while  he  looks  on  and  whittles. 

This  particular  Yankee  was  born  in 
Sweden,  and  never  saw  this  country  until 
his  old  boyhood  or  young  manhood.  En- 
dowment and  atmosphere  both  have  prob- 
ably entered  into  the  rich  quality  of  his 
genius.  We  of  the  bay  think  we  have 
never  met  anyone  quite  like  him.  Of 
middle  height  and  now  nearing  middle 
age,  his  own  hands,  empty  when  he  came, 
have  wrought  out  a  growing  competency 
for  his  simple  home.  For  twenty  years 
past,  with  the  exception  of  a  brief  stay 
among  Texas  sawmills,  he  has  repressed 
the  Viking  wander  spirit  and  remained 
with  us  at  the  bay. 

When  we  first  knew  him,  sixteen  years 
ago,  he  was  running  the  engine  in  the 
fish  mill  on  Fish  Island.  He  had  then  as 
now  the  art  of  never  seeming  busy,  but  of 
being  always  at  work;  of  never  looking 
for  anything,  but  of  always  knowing  where 
everything  is.  Quiet  even  to  gentleness 
in  manner,  seldom  speaking  unless  spoken 
to,  his  answer  always  begins,  at  least  to 
me,  with  a  "  prevenient "  smile.  To  this 
day  his  English,  as  good  as  anybody's, 
165 


carries  with  it  a  hint  of  Sweden,  and 
is  not  without  added  piquancy  on  this 
account. 

A  wide  forehead,  strong  nose,  and 
square  jaw  crown  a  sturdy  frame  with 
broad  shoulders.  A  vigorous  mustache, 
really  of  unusual  vigor,  compensates  for 
thinning  hair.  No  day  is  so  full  as  to  pre- 
vent his  going  for  his  New  York  daily, 
and  no  one  who  employs  him  ever  thinks 
of  his  losing  time  by  his  going. 

I  find  it  not  a  little  difficult  to  put  this 
man  on  paper.  The  last  remark  concern- 
ing his  going  for  his  paper  will  perhaps 
do  for  a  starting  point.  That  is  it.  He 
works  when  he  pleases,  how  he  pleases, 
and  as  long  as  he  pleases,  and  everybody 
is  content.  No  one  thinks  any  suggestion 
as  to  time  or  method  necessary.  Nobody 
watches  him  except  for  the  pleasure  of 
seeing  him  work,  and  no  one  takes  ac- 
count of  his  time.  No  one  who  knows 
him  questions  his  bills  either  as  to  time 
or  material.  Undergirding  all  the  rest 
is  his  genius  for  honesty.  I  have  paid 
him  hundreds  of  dollars  for  all  sorts  of 
work,  never  without  pleasure,  never  with 
thought  that  there  had  been  any  sloven- 
166 


liness,  carelessness,  or  inaccuracy  on  his 
part.  I  have  sent  him,  when  a  thousand 
miles  away,  a  rough  sketch  and  told  him 
to  work  it  out,  and  arrived  to  find  the 
job  of  wood,  brick,  or  stone  well  done 
and  on  time,  and  if  there  were  any  change 
from  the  original  plan,  it  was  to  its  bet- 
terment. 

In  mentioning  the  materials  above  I 
begin  the  catalogue  of  his  accomplish- 
ments. We  of  Granite  Bay  desire  no 
better  worker  in  wood.  He  can  build  a 
house  from  sill  to  roofboard,  and  give  us 
joy  in  the  way  he  handles  heavy  timbers 
and  puts  them  into  place.  He  is  so 
much  in  alliance  with  nature's  forces  that 
gravity  works  for  him  as  his  foreman. 
AVhen  others  tug,  strain,  and  shout  he 
slides,  roils,  and  slips  quietly  into  place. 
His  eye  is  almost  as  accurate  as  his  rule. 
I  am  not  sure  that  he  does  not  cut  his 
stuff  by  visual  measurement.  It  is  a  real 
joy  to  see  him  go  up  a  ladder.  I  say 
"go  up"  advisedly  instead  of  climb. 
There  is  no  climbing  about  it.  Pipe  in 
mouth,  a  long  board  under  one  arm,  two 
or  three  tools  in  the  other  hand,  he  walks 
up  the  rounds  perfectly  balanced  with  no 
167 


hold  but  his  feet,  and  as  steadily  as  if  on 
a  grand  staircase. 

It  often  happens  that  the  house  he 
erects  rests  on  stone  walls  he  has  built, 
and  is  warmed  through  fireplaces  and 
chimneys,  every  one  of  whose  bricks  he 
has  laid  up.  If  the  owner  would  have 
that  house  finished  in  paneled. and  pol- 
ished oak,  the  doors  and  windows  gar- 
nished with  the  finest  hardware,  our 
Genius  can  do  the  panel  work,  polish  it, 
and  fit  the  hardware  to  a  nicety. 

I  am  not  sure  that  his  gifts  have  not 
clearest  exposition  when  building  a  stone 
wall  out  of  the  rough  and  ill-faced  gran- 
ite hereabout.  No  scamp  work  on  shift- 
ing sand  or  yielding  clay  for  him.  The 
trench  goes  to  the  rock,  or  if  that  be  too 
deep  below  the  frost  line,  it  is  filled  to 
the  surface  with  broken  stone,  grouted 
with  cement.  Then  with  bar  and  roller 
the  great  stone  masses  fall  into  place 
and  stay  there.  He  never  tries  a  stone 
to  see  if  it  will  fit.  He  sees  its  fitness 
in  the  heap.  So  the  wall  rises  and  length- 
ens, bound  by  headers  and  held  by  mor- 
tar, until,  when  finished,  its  face  is  fair 
and  its  solidity  like  the  rock  itself.  So  I 
1 68 


praise  this  man  as  Carlyle  did  his  stone 
mason  father.  He  does  his  work  well, 
and  smiles  as  he  looks  at  it,  saying,  "I 
guess  you  will  find  it  there  to-morrow." 

At  the  foot  of  our  cliff  is  a  wall  built 
on  rocks  shelving  toward  the  sea.  For 
five  years  it  has  suffered  assault  and  bat- 
tery from  great  waves  hurled  by  two  hur- 
ricanes. It  has  been  washed  and  leaped 
upon  by  tons  of  water  from  tides  which 
submerged  half  of  it.  No  stone  has  been 
washed  out  nor  has  a  dollar  been  spent  for 
repairs. 

The  house  built,  it  must  have  its 
plumbing.  Drain  pipes  must  be  run  over 
the  cliff  and  screened  in  crevices  against 
offense  to  the  eye.  Our  Genius  departs 
with  his  planes  and  trowels  and  returns 
with  his  pipe-cutter,  threader,  solder,  and 
charcoal  furnace,  and  does  all  the  plumb- 
ing so  well  that  no  man  can  fault  it. 

The  drive  of  the  sleet-bearing  east 
wind  compels  us  to  paint  often  and 
heavily.  Before  the  plumbing  has  begun 
the  Genius  has  primed,  second-coated, 
and  trimmed  the  house  in  colors  which 
harmonize  or  contrast,  as  you  prefer. 

The  house  complete,  the  furnace  is  to 
169 


be  erected  and  pipes  carried  to  those  he 
has  built  in  the  walls.  Behold  our  Genius 
laying  the  brick  foundations,  setting  and 
cementing  fire-pot,  putting  on  the  dome, 
surrounding  all  with  the  skin  of  galvanized 
iron,  connecting  the  smoke-pipe,  and 
sending  the  smoke  up  a  chimney  into  which 
he  has  dropped  neither  brick  nor  mortar. 

Now  the  grounds  must  be  graded  and 
road  built  and  macadamized.  Here  our 
genius  is  in  full  strength.  One  more  trip 
to  his  home  and  he  appears  with  drill, 
tamp,  scoop,  hammer,  and  blasting 
powder  and  fuse,  and  the  woods  echo 
with  blasts  which  do  not  need  renewal  or 
multiplication. 

A  home  without  a  boat  here  loses  half 
its  delight.  Must  we  go  to  the  boat- 
builders  of  Oldport  for  it?  Nay!  Tell 
our  Genius  what  is  wanted.  Be  it  skiff, 
dory,  sharpie,  catboat,  knockabout, 
sloop,  smooth  or  clinker  built,  if  he  has 
not  already  built  during  the  winter,  he 
will  begin  it  for  you  now  and  rig  it  in  any 
way  you  wish.  But  you  had  better  take 
his  advice  as  to  her  rig  if  you  wish  speed 
or  carrying  power. 

If  you  are  very  ambitious,  and  demand 
170 


a  swift  naphtha  launch  with  any  form  of 
motor,  are  there  not  such  launches  faster 
than  all  the  others  and  built  by  him  now 
running  on  our  bay  before  your  eyes  ? 

When  the  house  is  done,  and  the  furni- 
ture in,  the  natural  depravity  of  inani- 
mate things  appears.  The  pump  will  not 
draw,  the  stove  smokes,  the  window 
sashes  need  loosening,  the  sewing 
machine  will  not  work.  Our  Genius  is 
master  of  them  all.  The  steam  engine 
on  the  island  is  obstinate  in  declining 
to  work,  the  hydraulic  pump  stops,  the 
boiler  must  have  a  patch,  a  new  vat  must 
be  set.  Mindful  of  his  first  American 
home,  the  Genius  drops  everything  and 
sets  all  to  rights  in  the  briefest  time. 

Last  fall  the  Fisherman  must  have  a 
greenhouse  and  conservatory.  Who  laid 
the  stone  foundation,  raised  the  brick 
wall,  laid  the  tile  floor,  set  up  the  frame, 
glazed  the  sash,  made  the  putty,  painted 
the  whole,  put  in  the  hot-water  furnace, 
joined  all  the  hot-water  pipes,  made  all 
the  trays,  and  turned  over  to  its  owner 
as  good  and  pretty  hothouse  as  need  be? 
The  Genius.  He  is  not  perfect.  He  can 
be  gruff.  He  has  learned  some  of  the 
171 


bad  words  in  the  language  of  wrath,  but 
he  is  an  honest  and  truthful  man.  If  he 
promises  to  come,  he  comes  when  he 
promises.  He  is  a  good,  strong  lesson 
in  truthfulness  and  fair  dealing.  In  these 
one  must  be  as  he  is  or  he  will  work  no 
more. 

117  2 


XVI 

THE     HERMIT 

ACK    of    the    park,    across 
the  flat  where  the  sea  once 
flowed,  and  up  a  steep  and 
rocky  hill  on  the  island  in 
our    rear,    you    may   see 
what  is  now  a  neat  cot- 
tage   over    whose    porch 
vines    clamber,  and    be- 
fore which  flowers  bloom, 
the  foot  of  this  hill  and  on  both  sides 
of  the  steep  road  ferns  thrive  marvelous- 
ly,  and  he  has  a  poor  eye  who  cannot  dis- 
tinguish six  or  seven  varieties. 

To  the  south  the  hill  is  thickly  wooded 
and  tangled  with  bittersweet,  sumach, 
blackberry,  and  barberry.  Underneath, 
the  wintergreen,  loved  of  the  children, 
shows  its  glossy  leaves  always,  and  in 
the   autumn   its  aromatic   and  vermilion 

berries. 

173 


The  ridge,  beneath  whose  crest  the  cot- 
tage stands,  lies  between  the  bay  and  the 
river,  so  that  one  has  them  both  in  sight 
and  with  few  steps  to  either. 

A  row  of  cottages  now  crowns  this 
ridge,  the  highest  view  point  near  the 
bay.  From  this  it  appears  landlocked 
and  grants  an  outlook  different  from  any 
other.  Of  late  a  little  colony  of  Germans 
build  to  the  southward  over  the  cliffs  of 
the  river.  But  when  I  first  knew  the 
Hermit  he  had  no  neighbors  to  speak  of 
or  to  speak  to.  For  the  last  he  had  small 
desire,  and  not  much  for  the  first,  and 
one  might  wralk  the  whole  length  of  the 
lower  road,  even  down  to  the  Fisherman's 
Point,  and  never  see  for  the  tangle  either 
house  or  Hermit. 

It  was  not  then  much  of  a  house,  and 
the  Hermit  was  not  much  of  a  house- 
keeper. Around  lay  an  extraordinary 
litter.  Garden  tools,  clam  rakes  and 
tongs,  eelpots  and  spears,  lobster  crates, 
and  crab  nets  w7ere  mixed  and  mingled 
marvelously.  Yet  there  was  an  artistic 
touch  in  it  all,  unintended  wholly,  but 
growing  out  of  the  gill  nets,  fyke  nets, 
killie  seines,  hung  from  tree  to  tree  or 
174 


spread  at  length  on  the  grass.  Such 
things  carry  the  sea  with  them  even  when 
used  in  inland  decoration.  An  eel  spear 
might  be  the  scepter  of  Neptune  himself. 

Around  the  house,  wherever  a  flat 
place  could  be  found,  the  Indians  once 
camped  and  roasted  their  shellfish.  This 
became  soil  after  centuries,  and,  though 
thick  with  shells,  is  deemed  the  best  we 
have  in  productiveness  and  resistance  to 
drought. 

There  is  certainly  no  home,  and  seldom 
is  there  anything  approaching  order, 
where  no  woman  is.  The  interior  of  the 
Hermit's  house  was  simply  indescribable. 
It  was  not  from  the  dirt,  for  the  Hermit 
was  too  much  of  a  gentleman  to  have 
filth  about  him.  But  I  doubt  if  there 
were  an  unbroken  plate  or  saucer,  cup, 
table,  chair,  or  bureau  which  was  whole. 
Not  often  could  anyone  catch  a  glimpse 
of  this  interior.  The  Hermit  was  quick 
of  ear  and  received  his  visitors  outdoors. 

The  shell  patches  were  well  cultivated, 
producing  more  than  he  needed.  So, 
rarely,  but  yet  occasionally,  he  would  offer 
what  he  had  for  sale,  but  more  often  wait 
for  a  purchaser.  Like  all  coast  folk  he 
(13)  '  i7S 


was  savagely  independent,  and,  like  the 
rest,  felt  he  was  doing  a  favor  to  anyone 
purchasing  of  him. 

Commonly  he  was  arrayed  as  in  the 
picture,  and  was  always  a  striking  figure. 
A  woolen  skullcap  with  a  wide  visor 
shaded  a  face  with  strong  and  long  New 
England  features,  the  adjective  "long" 
appertaining  with  emphasis  to  his  nose. 
The  last  gave  character  to  his  whole  face. 
It  was  penetrating,  but  not  impertinent; 
it  was  prominent,  but  not  insinuating.  It 
drooped  without  heaviness  at  the  point, 
suggesting  economy  of  resource  without 
parsimony.  A  striped  cotton  shirt  partly 
revealed  a  hairy  breast.  Woolen  trousers 
and  high  rubber  wading  boots,  with  tops 
rolling  downward,  completed  a  fitting  cos- 
tume for  the  lank  figure. 

In  some  unknown  place  he  kept  a 
town-going  suit,  which  we  never  liked  to 
see.  It  meant  that  his  thirst  was  on  and 
that  he  would  not  be  found  among  us  for 
days,  and  must  be  looked  for  in  Oldport, 
a  town  which  never  did  him  any  good,  as 
it  does  not  to  some  others. 

One  might  have  known  him  a  hundred 
years  and  not  have  heard  him  speak  of 
176 


his  past  or  of  his  family.  Indeed  there 
was  a  dignity  about  him  which  made  even 
the  shore  folk  chary  of  asking  questions. 
But  shore  folk  have  their  own  way  of 
absorbing  information,  and  come  to  clear 
opinion  about  everybody,  and  something 
was  known  of  him  and  communicated  to 
me ;  perhaps  equally  to  others,  but  of 
this  I  know  nothing. 

Of  the  life  and  produce  of  the  sea  he 
was  most  knowing.  His  skiff  was  in  the 
river  and  his  scow  in  the  bay.  From 
these  his  innumerable  implements  drew 
his  livelihood.  When  soft  clams  from 
the  river  palled  hard  clams  from  the  bay 
satisfied.  When  eels  did  not  pot  his 
fyke  gave  him  flounders,  frostfish,  hake, 
and  striped  bass  in  due  season.  When 
the  law  was  off  he  hooked  oysters  from 
the  rocks  in  the  river.  His  surplus 
brought  him  the  money  he  was  never 
without.  A  few  groceries  met  his  wants, 
tobacco  being,  I  fancy,  a  large  portion 
of  the  money  cost  of  his  livelihood.  He 
never  entertained  company  ;  needed  no 
favors,  even  if  it  had  been  his  disposition 
to  receive  them. 

The  camera  caught  him  whittling  a 
177 


tholepin  on  the  way  from  his  scow  to  his 
cabin.  Though  he  saw  it,  it  is  doubtful 
if  he  knew  it  was  taking  him.  There 
might  easily  .have  been  a  scene.  On  oc- 
casion he  drew  on  an  emphatic  pictur- 
esque and  hot  vocabulary.  No  effort  was 
made  to  conceal  the  camera.  It  was  in 
the  early  days  of  the  snapshot.  The  im- 
portance of  explaining  to  him  its  func- 
tions was  not  apparent  as  an  imperious 
necessity.  Yet  he  glanced  at  it  long 
enough  to  give  his  characteristic  attitude 
and  his  somewhat  severe  and  suspicious 
expression. 

Let  me  do  him  justice.  Seeking  no 
acquaintances,  asking  no  attention,  to  a 
few  he  was  genial  and  talkative.  For  a 
very  few  he  would  work  on  rare  occasions 
at  sawing  wood,  trimming  trees,  or  lay- 
ing stone  wall. 

For  the  last  he  had  the  hammer  of 
Thor.  Its  head  was  of  twenty  pounds 
weight,  and  he  handled  it  with  pride  as 
other  men  did  theirs  of  half  the  weight. 
His  more  than  sixty  years  sat  lightly  on 
him  and  until  the  end  came,  and  to  the  very 
end  he  had  the  instincts  of  a  gentleman. 

To  those  who  hailed  him  familiarly  as 
178 


"Cappen  Bill"  he  made  short  answer. 
But  to  those  who  called  him  Captain, 
sounding  his  surname,  he  touched  his 
cap  and  answered  fully.  He  was  notably 
polite  to  young  girls  who  knew  how  to 
address  him,  and  he  distinguished  sharply 
between  "gals"  and  young  ladies  accord- 
ing to  their  manner  of  saluting  him.  "I 
don't  call  them  ladies.  They  are  only 
gals.  They  don't  know  how  to  speak  to 
an  old  man."  For  such  as  he  liked  he 
opened  the  secrets  of  the  woods  and  put 
them  on  the  trail  of  arbutus,  jack-in-the- 
pulpit,  prince's  pine,  and  maidenhair  fern. 
For  such  he  gathered  wintergreen  berries, 
bringing  them  in  grape-leaf  cups,  as  he 
also  did  the  delicious  wild  strawberry.  It 
was  to  the  houses  where  such  lived  that 
he  went  first  to  offer  his  best  of  sea  food 
when  in  the  mood  to  sell.  I  recall  that 
once,  when  a  wild  nor'wester  exposed 
flats  rarely  bare,  he  found  some  enormous 
soft  clams,  delicious  when  baked,  and  not 
at  all  common.  He  brought  them  past  the 
entire  village  to  offer  them  to  the  young 
girls  who  were  habitually  polite  to  him. 

So  reticent  was  he  that  I  never  knew 
whether  he    gained   his  title   of   Captain 
179 


from  having  commanded  some  sloop  or 
schooner  or  from  having  lived  long  by 
the  sea.  As  the  shore  folk  do  not  use 
the  title  lightly,  and  granted  it  to  him,  it 
must  be  that  he  was  once  a  commander. 

He  certainly  had  all  the  arts  of  the  able 
seaman.  He  could  rig  and  splice  beauti- 
fully. His  moods  were  such  that  one 
could  have  his  services  only  infrequently. 
So  the  Mystery,  written  of  elsewhere,  of 
equal  skill  and  easily  accessible,  if  not 
hovering  about,  was  the  more  often  em- 
ployed. 

I  do  not  know  how  many  years  he 
lived  in  the  Cabin  on  the  Hill,  nor  is  the 
whole  story  of  his  life  mine.  There  was 
a  tradition  of  his  having  been  soured  by 
a  disappointment  in  love.  But  this  story 
attaches  somehow  to  all  hermits,  and 
hence  doubt.  Yet  it  may  be.  But  it  is 
against  it  that  he  was  no  sharper  of 
speech  as  to  women  than  as  to  men. 
Some  great  and  early  shock  to  his  faith 
in  humankind  he  certainly  had  had. 
This  accounted  for  the  road  to  his  confi- 
dence being  so  hard  that  few  could  reach 
it.  Of  mankind  in  general  his  opinion 
was  poor  enough.  He  thought  the  birds 
180 


and    beasts    better    company    and    more 

trustworthy.  . 

There  are  always  depth  and  strength  in 
such  natures,  as  well   as   a  touch  of  the 
Pharisee.      No    man    shuts   himself    away 
from  his  kind  without  feeling  himself,  at 
some  one  point  at  least,  better  than  most. 
There   is  almost   always  also    in    such   a 
poetic  vein   of  vast   size   and  value— for 
instance,   in  Thoreau.      This   man  was  a 
Thoreau  on  a  small  scale,  and  with  some 
few    habits    which    men    have    told    me 
Thoreau    had    not.       The    Hermit    had 
keenest  enjoyment   in    nature,    from    the 
rainbow  to  the  dewdrop,  from  the  sky  to 
the  sea.     In  fact  it  may  be  that  a  capac- 
ity   for    delight    in    such    things    uncon- 
sciously   draws    such    natures,    otherwise 
rough,    to    the    seaside,    and   holds  them 
there.'    To  this  must  be  added,   as   per- 
haps the  controlling  force,    a  more  pro- 
saic  fact,   namely,   the   ease   with   which 
life  can  be  supported  by  a   sea   offering 
its    market    by    the    side    of    land   fairly 

fruitful. 

That  the   Hermit  had  had  a  good  an- 
cestry and  good  training  appeared  from 
occasional    outcropping    in    speech    and 
181 


conduct.  He  challenged  men  frequently 
to  say  that  he  ever  wronged  anyone  but 
himself.  This  leads  to  my  touching  as 
delicately  as  I  may  the  fact,  sad  always 
and  everywhere,  that  he  was  mastered 
sometimes  by  an  hereditary  or  invited 
enemy,  who  led  him  whither  he  would 
not  wish  to  go. 

In  such  conditions  he  became  talkative 
and  sought  the  company  of  men,  there 
being  no  stronger  proof  that  he  was  not 
himself.  But  the  man  remained  in  him. 
He  had  no  maudlin  excuses  for  himself  ; 
no  tale  to  tell,  as  another  had,  of  being 
driven  to  it  by  wrongs  done  him.  He 
knew  he  was  doing  wrong,  and  said  so, 
but  fired  a  salvo  to  his  conscience  by  say- 
ing: "  Anyhow,  I  don't  hurt  nobody  but 
myself.  I  just  hurt  myself,  nobody  else." 
This  was  true.  We  never  knew  him  to  be 
in  any  brawls. 

So  for  years  we  lived  near  him,  meet- 
ing him  daily,  finding  him  scrupulously 
honest  and  truthful.  If  he  made  a  prom- 
ise, he  kept  it.  It  was  not  easy  to  extract 
a  promise  ;  but,  given,  it  was  sacred. 
Even  when  shaken  by  his  enemy  he  more 
than  once  has  come  to  say:  "You  see  I 
182 


ain't  fit  for  nothin*.  I'll  come  as  soon  as 
I  am." 

One  winter  pneumonia  caught  him 
alone  in  his  cabin.  Glad  we  are  to  know 
that  some  of  his  blood  cared  for  him. 
We  loved  him  well  enough  to  fear  that 
he  might  be  ill  for  days  and  none  know  it 
until  found  dead. 

The  season  was  a  lonely  one  until 
we  became  accustomed  to  his  absence. 
More  than  one  with  the  best  the 
world  can  give  mourned  him  with  tears. 
Those  of  us  who  are  older  felt  then,  as 
we  feel  now,  that  our  bay  is  poorer  since 
the  Hermit  died.  His  cabin  is  trans- 
formed. It  is  clean,  pretty,  and  shelters 
nice  people.  But  I  doubt  if  any  honester 
soul  will  ever  look  out  of  its  windows  or 
a  stronger  nature  watch  the  sunrise  from 
his  hill.  Once  or  twice  each  season  I 
climb  there  to  help  memory  bring  him 
back.  But  all  is  so  changed  that  mem- 
ory finds  it  hard  to  adjust  the  place  to  him 
or  him  to  the  place.  More  fully  can  I 
bring  him  back  in  the  path  he  wore 
through  the  thicket  to  his  boat  and  on 
the  rock  where  he  mended  his  net. 
Thicket  and  rock  you  may  see  in  the 
183 


picture  of  the  Hermit.  Alas  that  such 
things  seem  to  outlast  the  men  who  have 
made  them  worth  a  thought!  But  slight- 
er things  than  rocks  and  groves  outlast 
men.  There  is  immense  pathos  to  my 
mind  in  the  photograph,  the  shadow  pic- 
ture, of  a  dead  man.  The  shadow  of  the 
Hermit  has  outlasted  him  by  ten  years. 
184 


XVII 

THE    MYSTERY 


T  WAS  not  some  hidden 
crime  nor  some  skulking 
malefactor,  but  a  neighbor. 
The  thoughtful  know 
that  each  man  is  a  mystery 
to  himself  and  that  others 
are  to  him.  Few,  very  few, 
characters  are  so  trans- 
parent that  he  who  runs, 
and  can  therefore  have  no 
more  than  a  glance,  can  read. 

I  knew  the  Mystery  well  ;  perhaps  as 
well  as  anyone  not  of  his  family  ;  keep- 
ing close  to  him,  of  purpose,  for  ten 
years,  always  learning  something,  meet- 
ing surprises  ;  often  discouraged,  declar- 
ing I  would  have  no  more  to  do  with 
him  ;  constantly  taking  him  up  again  ; 
drawn  by  his  cleverness  in  things  useful  ; 
attracted  by  the  complexity  of  his  make- 
rs 


up — and  at  last  coming  to  love  him  after 
a  fashion  despite  many  reasons  for  dis- 
like if  not  detestation.  It  may  be  that 
curiosity  or  a  small  touch  of  scientific  in- 
quiry were  more  operative  than  aught  else 
through  these  years  in  holding  me  to  him. 
I  will  not  contradict  any  who  think  so. 

I  know  of  no  one  of  my  neighbors  who 
was  safe  from  his  criticisms.  A  stronger 
word  might  find  justification.  Certainly 
he  spared  not  me  nor  mine.  All  the  evil 
he  spoke  of  others  was,  I  doubt  not,  as 
much  the  product  of  his  diseased  imag- 
ination as  that  he  said  of  me  and  mine. 
If  one  believed  him,  there  were  no  good 
people  in  the  neighborhood.  Kindnesses 
shown  him,  rescue  from  painful  condi- 
tions, put  no  lock  on  his  tongue.  Yet  he 
would  be  unjust  who  should  say  he  could 
not  be  grateful,  as  he  also  who  should 
say  he  could  not  be  kind.  I  cannot, 
therefore,  praise  him  for  invariable  and 
strenuous  veracity  as  to  others,  nor  could 
much  that  he  said  about  himself  be  re- 
ceived without  salt. 

On  hearing  him  talk,  his  air  of  truth- 
fulness, his  multiplicity  of  detail,  his  ac- 
curate and  flowing  supply  of  vocables, 
186 


gave  him  an   appearance  and  persuasion 
of  truth  fit  to  deceive  any.     Nor  is  it  to 
be  doubted  that  he  was  sometimes  precise 
even    exact,    in    statement.      Of    this    all 
men  had  proof.     Yet   he  exhaled  an  at- 
mosphere of  incredulity  among  those  who 
knew  him,   and    only  those  who  did  not 
know  him  would  accept  much  that  he  said 
and  nothing  whatever  as  to  the  character 
and  conduct  of  his  neighbors. 

Did  I  therefore  think  him  hopelessly 
and  of  purpose  mendacious  ?  No  ;  others 
thought  him  so,  but  I  dared  not.  1  he 
mystery  is  in  the  why  of  this. 

No  handier  man  except  the  Genius  lived 
among  us.     He  was  chiefly  a  house  paint- 
er  and  none  deny  that  he  was  a  rapid  and 
excellent  workman.    He  could  paint  faster 
than   any  painter   who  did  not  talk,  and 
talk  faster  than  anyone  who  did  not  paint. 
Brush   and    tongue   wagged   on   together 
It  is  affirmed  that  when  alone  he  talked 
to   himself.      There   was    on    him   and   in 
him   a    necessity   of   speech.      He  was   a 
night  and  day  factory  of  statements.     It 
alone,  there  was  a  slower  market  for  his 
product      With  others  he  thought  there 
would  be  a  ready  one.     So  he  talked  until 
187 


rebuked,  and  after  that  still  talked  on,  tak- 
ing up  what  he  fancied  would  be  a  more 
attractive  subject,  and  always  with  a  bear- 
ing of  equality  with  any. 

He  was  really,  for  his  position,  a  man 
of  more  than  ordinary  intelligence.  Never 
so  penniless  as  to  be  without  a  daily  paper, 
he  remembered  all  the  news  and  the  sub- 
stance and  personnel  of  the  advertise- 
ments. He  had  read  many  books,  and 
would  often  surprise  us  by  his  correct  use 
of  the  names  and  drift  of  American 
authors. 

He  had  seen  countless  plays  and  could 
hit  off  the  characteristics  of  the  chief 
actors  of  the  last  quarter  of  a  century. 
It  will  appear  later  that  he  had  some  sort 
of  a  religious  vein,  not  very  large  nor 
well  defined,  nor  of  close  ethical  con- 
nections, nor  rarely  dominant,  but  it  was 
there. 

He  must  at  some  time  have  been  in  the 
army,  for  he  belonged  to  a  veterans'  asso- 
ciation and  drew  a  pension,  indicating 
total  disability.  Possibly  his  genius  for 
romance  was  effective  in  securing  this 
last.  All  the  ten  years  we  knew  him  he 
was  able-bodied,  except  when  temporarily 
188 


weakened  of  his  own  choice.  Yet  he 
claimed  to  have  frequent  hemorrhages 
and  heart  trouble.  No  one  can  say  he 
did  not.  The  medical  examiners  who 
passed  him  for  a  pension  ought  to  know. 
But  he  neither  lived  nor  worked  as  if  he 
had  either. 

He  claimed  to  have  sailed  around  the 
world  both  in  whaling  and  merchant  ves- 
sels, and  to  have  visited  all  the  great 
ports.  It  may  be,  but  who  can  know  ? 
To  do  him  justice  let  me  say  that  when  I 
brought  some  whaling  harpoons  and  lances 
from  Nantucket  he  named  them  correctly 
and  was  most  intensely  interested. 

In  climbing  he  had  the  steadiest  hands 
and  head  and  almost  prehensile  feet. 
He  walked  the  whole  length  of  the  ridge- 
board  of  a  large  house,  paint  pot  in  one 
hand  and  brushes  in  the  other.  He 
climbed  trees  like  a  cat,  and  went  to 
heights  and  trusted  himself  on  limbs 
where  we  dare  not  look  at  him. 

He  was  the  best  of  help  in  rigging  and 
sailing  a  boat.  It  was  this  gift  which 
first  made  me  acquainted  with  him.  The 
halyards  of  a  sharpie  had  parted  and  run 
out  of  the  masthead  block.  The  mast  was 
189 


too  slender  to  climb  or  bear  the  weight  of 
a  man.  So  he  brought  the  boat  to  the 
foot  of  our  cliff,  and  climbed  where  I 
thought  no  foot  could  hold.  With  one 
hand  on  the  fence  he  stretched  out  toward 
the  mast,  caught  it,  sprang  it  in,  threw 
the  bight  of  a  rope  round  it,  and  handed 
me  the  slack.  After  reeving  the  block  he 
said,  "  Let  go  the  slack."  He  was  stand- 
ing between  me  and  the  mast  and  I  could 
not  see  that  the  halyards  were  still  in  his 
hands.  The  spring  of  the  mast  jerked 
him  off  the  cliff.  I  turned  away  faint.  I 
thought  him  hurled  into  the  water  or  on 
the  rocks  thirty  feet  below.  I  tremblingly 
looked  over.  There  he  was,  standing  on 
the  forward  deck  of  the  sharpie  looking 
up  and  smiling.  He  had  held  to  the  rope 
and  slid  down  to  the  deck.  Whether  this 
was  accidental  or  a  performance  gotten 
up  for  my  benefit  I  do  not  know.  He 
said  it  was  a  close  call,  but  the  grin  on 
his  face  led  me  to  think  it  might  be  a 
dare-devil  display  of  his  agility.  Who 
could  doubt  after  this  that  he  had  been  a 
sailor  ?  He  had  all  the  sailor's  accom- 
plishments from  making  an  end  splice  to 
splicing  the  main  brace.  He  boxed  the 
190 


compass  glibly,  was  truly  weatherw'ise, 
and  his  walk  was  of  the  sea. 

But  I  never  heard  him  name  the  mas- 
ters he  sailed  with  nor  the  ships  he  sailed 
in,  though  he  claimed  to  have  shipped 
once  as  a  first  mate.  It  is  safest  to  con- 
clude only  that  he  had  been  to  sea.  All 
the  rest  may  have  been  the  work  of  that 
form  of  imagination  which  leads  some 
men  to  claim  that  any  experience  of  yours 
is  far  less  remarkable  than  any  one  of 
theirs.  I  have  known  others  beside  the 
Mystery  who  had  this  gift. 

He  was  as  fearless  as  skillful  in  han- 
dling a  boat,  and  was  often  taken  as  pilot 
by  those  less  skillful  than  himself.  Some- 
times, as  the  picture  shows,  Granite  Bay 
has,  when  the  south  wind  blows,  a  surf 
like  the  ocean.  It  was  hard  to  keep  the 
Mystery  at  work  then.  If  he  could  bor- 
row a  sailboat,  he  would  alone  delightedly 
butt  into  the  seas  with  only  a  handkerchief 
of  a  sail,  or  if  he  could  find  only  a  row- 
boat,  he  would  ride  the  combers  in  that. 
We  thought  him  born  to  be  drowned,  but 
he  died  in  his  bed. 

Calm  seas  found  him  willing  to  work, 
and  he  was  a  marvel  for  work  about  a 
(14)  191 


house.  He  loved  all  plant  life;  surrounded 
his  poor  home  with  flowers.  He  could  be 
trusted  implicitly  to  bed  plants  as  no  man 
can  who  does  not  love  them.  If  there 
was  no  painting  to  do  at  painter's  wages, 
he  would  do  laborer's  work  for  laborer's 
wages.  If  one  needed  help  at  a  picnic — 
oysters  roasted,  clams  steamed,  table  set, 
dishes  washed — or  if  one  needed  a  cook 
for  a  day,  he  was  as  skillful  as  he  was 
ready. 

In  fact  it  was  suspected  that  this  kind 
of  work  was  particularly  pleasing  to  him, 
as  he  then  had  opportunity  to  exercise  his 
gifts  of  narration  to  new  acquaintances. 
These  on  such  occasions  and  all  others  he 
ardently  sought.  * 

It  is  to  be  admitted,  as  with  some 
other  great  men,  that  he  preferred  mono- 
logue to  dialogue  provided  he  was  the 
monologist.  Never  troubled  with  bash- 
fulness  or  shy  from  conscious  incompe- 
tence for  any  theme,  he  would,  when  aid 
to  a  picnic,  pick  up  all  the  names  in  a 
moment,  at  once  begin  talking,  attend 
faithfully  to  what  he  was  paid  for  doing, 
and  really  get  more  enjoyment  out  of  the 
affair  than  anyone  else.  His  was  a  dou- 
192 


ble,  yea,  a  treble  delight.  He  had  picnic 
company,  picnic  food,  and  picnic  pay. 

In  some  mysterious  way  he  could  pro- 
vide on  short  notice  the  material  for  a 
shore  dinner,  from  the  succulent  clam  from 
the  river  to  the  stew  of  eels  from  the  Cut. 
His  facility  in  this  respect  was  connected, 
in  some  uncharitable  minds,  with  a  predi- 
lection for  nocturnal  activities,  and  a  too 
intimate  knowledge  of  the  habits,  meth- 
ods, and  haunts  of  some  of  the  fishermen. 
In  slower  minds  it  may  be  that  his  suc- 
cesses could  only  in  this  way  be  accounted 
for.  Facility  is  a  mark  of  genius,  and  so 
I  leave  the  consideration  of  the  Mystery's 
gift  as  a  providence. 

It  would  be  difficult  to  prove  that  he 
was  a  good  husband  and  a  wise  father, 
but  he  certainly  loved  his  family,  unless 
all  the  accepted  proofs  of  love  must  in 
his  case  go  for  naught.  No  father  could 
walk  more  proudly  with  his  pretty  chil- 
dren or  kiss  more  ecstatically  his  dump- 
ling of  a  baby.  That  his  love  was  real 
I  must  believe  from  this,  that  the  children 
delighted  to  be  with  him. 

As  I  have  said  he  often,  if  he  was  to  be 
believed,  had  "hemorrhages."  At  least 
193 


this  was  the  most  frequent  excuse  he  sent 
up  to  me  when  he  failed  to  come  to  work. 
But  as  these  were  usually  preceded  by 
visits  to  Oldport  I  must  fear  that  the 
word  was  a  euphemism  sometimes  for  that 
form  of  prostration  which  follows  experi- 
menting with  "  spiritus  frumenti."  Yet 
may  not  charity  hold  that  he  thought  to 
save  his  self-respect  and  some  measure  of 
the  regard  of  his  neighbors  by  a  fiction  ? 
A  man  has  to  be  low  down  who  frankly 
admits  in  good,  plain  English  that  he  was 
drunk.  Yet  here  is  the  mystery  of  the 
sophistication  of  conscience  that  one 
should  think  himself  less  tainted  by  a  lie 
than  by  drink. 

It  was  after  these  "  hemorrhages  "  that 
he  would  think  himself  dying  and  send  for 
me  to  pray  with  him.  I  never  failed  to 
go.  Not  that  I  could  feel  that  his  moral 
fiber  was  strong  enough  to  make  either 
penitence  or  prayer  long  helpful.  But 
certainly  he  mourned  his  infirmity  with 
tears,  and,  though  claiming  to  be  sick 
when  sending  for  me,  did  not  conceal  the 
real  cause  after  I  reached  him. 

But  the  boy  wTould  say,  "  Father  has 
had  a  hemorrhage  and  wants  you  to  come 
194 


and  pray  with  him."  Perhaps  the  father 
wanted  the  boy  to  think  well  of  him  as 
long  as  he  could. 

One  day  there  came  a  crash  in  his  home 
affairs.  He  returned  from  work  to  find 
wife  and  children  gone.  Few  blamed  her 
for  going,  if  many  blamed  her  for  the 
occasion  of  her  going.  Never  have  I  been 
more  puzzled  over  a  man.  He  had  left 
his  family  many  times  alone  for  months  in 
the  winter.  Nor  do  I  know  that  of  his  earn- 
ings he  sent  the  wife  so  much  as  a  cent. 
But  no  true-hearted  and  faithful  husband 
could  be  more  agonized  over  the  wreck 
of  a  home,  or  more  appalled  at  an  im- 
measurable calamity.  He  was  as  humili- 
ated as  if  he  had  given  no  occasion,  and 
as  indignant  as  if  he  had  always  been 
blameless.  It  was  pitiful — pitiful  to  see 
him  and  hear  him — the  more  as  one  could 
not  wholly  sympathize  with  him. 

Yet  the  following  months  were  no  worse 
than  before.  The  blow  seemed  to  stagger 
him  first  and  then  sober  him.  He  worked 
hard,  saved  some  money,  sold  his  house, 
proposed  to  get  another  home  elsewhere, 
and  went  away  from  the  bay  ;  so  that  for 
two  years  we  lost  sight  of  him. 

195 


It  was  in  the  spring,  I  think,  that  he 
came  to  tell  me  he  had  a  home  again; 
that  his  wife  was  with  him;  that  both 
had  pledged  themselves  to  lead  Christian 
lives  ;  that  they  had  knelt  together  at  the 
altar  of  the  church.  He  was  clean,  well 
dressed,  and  happy,  and  for  once  talked 
an  hour  without  speaking  evil  of  anyone. 
I  am  not  ashamed  to  say  I  had  hopes  of 
him,  though  few  had,  and  most  smiled 
when  they  heard  his  tale.  But  God  is 
good  and  allows  no  man  to  die  without, 
at  some  time,  a  clear  sight  of  himself. 
The  Mystery  had  had  such  a  revelation 
from  above.  This  undergirded  my  hope. 
I  saw  little  of  him  that  summer,  but  when 
I  did  he  said,   "We  are  still  holding  on." 

The  winter  came,  and  when  in  the  far 
South  I  heard  he  was  dead  ;  that  once 
more  he  had  failed,  and  that  pneumonia 
following  exposure  had  taken  him  off. 

I  was  sorry  then  and  am  sorry  still. 
There  was  little  to  love  in  him.  His 
faults  were  many,  his  virtues  few.  Most 
felt  glad,  and  rightly,  when  he  moved 
from  our  bay  as  adding  to  its  comfort  and 
removing  a  care.  I  cannot  claim  more  of 
charity  than  others.  Possibly  I  missed 
196 


him  as  a  subject  of  study  ;  possibly  I  had 
something  of  the  "empty  armness "  which 
those  have  who  drop  a  long-time  burden; 
possibly  something  of  a  Christian's  sorrow 
that  prayer  and  patience  seemed  to  end 
in  flat  failure. 

Somehow  I  still  remember  him  kindly. 
There  was  an  abounding  cheerfulness;  an 
amazing  nimbleness  of  mind  and  body;  a 
readiness  to  do  a  kindness;  an  undying 
love  for  his  children;  an  occasional  sorrow 
for  wrongdoing.  These  were  mingled 
with  baser  clay.  What  was  his  early  en- 
vironment ?  What  his  ancestry  ?  What 
strange  and  wayward  cells  from  long-dead 
men  were  in  him  ever  contending  with 
better  matter  from  a  better  source  ?  I  do 
not  know  and  now  never  shall.  I  cannot 
explain  him  nor  wholly  account  for  my 
liking  him.  For  years  he  was  a  mysteri- 
ous fact,  as  is  my  sadness  in  seeing  him 
no  more. 

I  recall,  as  possibly  my  last  sight  of 
him,  that  on  an  evening  of  wonderful  sun- 
set, when  the  ruddy  and  gilded  heavens 
were  reflected  in  the  expanse  of  the  bay, 
he  came  to  the  edge  of  our  cliff  and  stood 
there,  turning  alternately  from  the  east- 
197 


ward  glory  of  the  sea  to  the  westward 
glory  of  the  sky.  As  the  light  faded  he 
went  silently  away. 

May  not  God's  mercy  find  some  place 
for  one  who  could  be  stilled  by  s'ich  a 
sight,  and  in  whom  ''the  elements  were 
so  strangely  mingled  "  ?  He  came  into 
the  world  not  by  his  own  choice  and  went 
out  of  it  by  his  own  fault.  Is  it  not  well 
that  there  is  One,  and  he  a  Father,  who 
knows  all  ? 

198 


XVIII 

THE    SILENT    MAN 

HERE  the  house  stands  I 
will  not  say,  lest  those 
who  wish  it  in  summer 
may  fear  to  take  it.  But 
I  know  the  house  forever, 
and  was  in  it  when  what  I  relate  of  the 
Silent  Man  and  his  family  happened — 
events  which  did  not  then  end  in  death, 
but  something  worse. 

It  was  late  in  November.  Indian  sum- 
mer was  past.  The  chestnut  burrs  lay 
empty  on  the  ground.  The  last  robin 
had  gone.  The  reds  of  the  maples  had 
dulled  into  brown.  Only  a  few  leaves 
hung  lifelessly  from  the  twigs.  A  freeze 
had  left  the  oak  leaves  crisp  and  rattling 
in  the  wind.  Here  and  there  in  sunny 
places  the  purple  asters  were  still  in 
bloom,  but  the  spires  of  golden-rod  and 
plumes  of  clematis  were  now  simply  fluffy 
199 


and  wind-driven  down.  Cottage  owners 
were  making  their  final  visits  before  win- 
ter, putting  under  cover  everything  which 
could  be  damaged.  • 

The  Genius  had  gotten  the  yachts  and 
launches  ashore  on  the  last  perigee  tide 
and  was  housing  them.  The  Mystery 
was  oystering  in  the  river,  there  being 
now  no  call  for  his  brush.  The  Fisher- 
man had  discharged  his  crew  and  sent 
away  his  last  schooner  load  of  oil.  The 
Long  Captain  had  taken  in  his  lobster 
pots  and  was  thinking  that  his  fyke  had 
better  come  in  also.  The  chill  of  coming 
snow  was  in  the  air.  There  was  ice  on 
the  verandas  and  ice  in  the  gutters.  It 
was  high  time  to  have  things  in  order, 
and  that  was  why  I  was  there. 

I  do  not  know  when  the  Silent  Man 
came  to  the  bay.  Certainly  before  I  did, 
for  his  house  was  then  built  and  his  fam- 
ily there.  I  had  to  make  his  acquaint- 
ance, for  not  otherwise  would  he  have 
spoken  to  me.  If  anyone  learned  where 
he  came  from  and  how  he  happened  to 
have  money  enough  to  build  that  house 
and  another  one,  it  was  not  from  him  nor 
from    his    equally   reticent   wife.     There 

200 


was  a  rumor  that  the  money  was  hers, 
but  none  claimed  to  know,  not  even  the 
Long  Captain,  who,  as  all  men  know,  has 
facilities  and  gifts  for  acquiring  knowl- 
edge. There  were  two  pretty  children,  a 
boy  and  a  girl,  neatly  dressed  and  be- 
speaking a  careful  mother. 

The  man  was  worse  than  silent.  He 
was  gruff.  Few  persisted  in  trying  to 
know  him.  The  shore  folk  are  suspicious 
of  the  uncommunicative.  They  know 
what  they  are  doing,  and  to  them  it  is  a 
violation  of  decency  if  a  newcomer  does 
not  promptly  tell  where  he  came  from, 
how  he  got  his  money,  how  much  he  had 
before  he  built  his  house,  and  how  much 
he  has  now.  The  Silent  Man  said  nothing 
on  these  points,  and  was  straightway  un- 
popular for  this  as  for  his  general  surli- 
ness. I  always  speak  guardedly  of  what 
I  do  not  see.  Hence  I  state  as  a  rumor, 
and  not  as  a  fact,  that  it  was  the  Silent 
Man  who  had  that  painful  interview  with 
Sugar's  father,  and  that  it  was  he  who 
passed  me  after  dark  nursing  a  black  eye 
and  resetting  some  teeth.  While  I  admit 
that  the  substance  or  the  occasion  of  that 
interview  will  now  never  be  fully  known, 

201 


I  fancy  that  a  part  of  it  was  the  voicing 
of  local  resentment  toward  a  man  who 
could  move  himself  and  his  belongings  to 
the  shore  and  give  out  no  reasons,  culti- 
vate no  acquaintances,  nor  tell  where  he 
got  his  money.  While  I  cannot  approve 
the  nature  of  the  protest,  it  was  quite 
within  probability  that  it  should  occur. 

It  was  only  a  short  time  after  he  came 
that  he  was  voted  to  be  lazy  as  well  as 
silent.  Some  of  his  critics  have  that  rep- 
utation, but  feel  it  to  be  highly  unjust. 
All  men  need  long  periods  of  rest  to 
enable  them  to  meet  the  greater  strains 
and  stress  of  life.  Some  shore  folk  gener- 
ously understand  this  and  fear  that  they 
have  not  rested  enough  to  meet  possible 
strain,  and  so  keep  on  resting.  I  doubt 
if  they  ever  heard  this  couplet,  but  it  is 
the  quintessence  of  their  philosophy: 

"  He  who  worketh  always,  working  without  rest, 
Never  thinks  his  greatest,  never  does  his  best." 

Now,  when  one  has  rested  long  enough 
to  think  his  best  but  not  to  do  his  best, 
what  must  one  do  but  keep  on  resting  ? 
If,  by  three  months'  waiting  on  summer 
visitors,  the  shore  folk  can  earn  enough 
to  scrimp  through  the  other  nine  months, 


why  should  they  work  ?  If  they  have  not 
enough  for  the  whole  winter,  are  there 
not  ducks  to  be  shot  and  clams  to  be 
dug?     May  not   oysters   be   had  for  the 

pulling  ? 

Moreover,  it  is  very  fatiguing  to  wait 
on  summer  people.  They  expect  to  find 
what  they  need  early  or  late,  and  actu- 
ally hammer  at  the  grocery  door  at  eight 
in  the  morning.  No  wonder  shore  peo- 
ple are  disturbed  by  such  behavior! 
Hence  I  hold  that  our  people  were  right 
in  calling  the  Silent  Man  lazy,  since  he 
worked  no  harder  in  summer  than  in  win- 
ter. He  went  on  his  own  way,  and  at 
his  own  speed,  and  was  never  without 
money  summer  or  winter. 

The  Silent  Man  was  short  and  thickset, 
his  wife  long  and  lean.  She  wore  a  sub- 
dued air,  as  if  a  battle  had  been  fought 
and  she  had  not  won.  A  ghost  of  a 
smile  had  been  seen  a  few  times  on  her 
face.  The  two  together  could  gloom  any 
company  in  five  minutes.  No  one  heard 
of  any  trouble  between  them.  Both  were 
capable  of  keeping  it  to  themselves  if 
there  had  been  any. 

The  Silent  Man  soon  caught  the  fever 


203 


of  summer  business  and  built  a  large 
house,  with  a  ball  room  up  stairs  and  a 
place  for  various  games  below.  I  am 
certain,  as  I  look  back,  that  I  'never 
heard  of  any  dancing  there  nor  saw  any 
one  playing  games  there.  I  have  seen 
the  Silent  Man  playing  by  himself,  mute, 
solemn,  but  content.  In  the  autumn  he 
closed  this  house  and  moved  back  to  his 
cottage. 

Returning  from  the  post  office  in  the 
fall  before  mentioned,  I  saw  the  Silent 
Man,  hatless  and  coatless,  gesticulating 
violently  from  his  veranda  in  some  regu- 
lar but  unmeaning  fashion.  He  excitedly 
asked  as  I  passed,  "Do  you  know  the 
meaning  of  this  sign  ?"  I  answered  that 
I  knew  some  signs,  having  been  in  a  col- 
lege secret  society  and  in  my  youth 
knowm  some  other  brotherhoods.  "  Then 
what  does  this  mean  ? "  He  was  touch- 
ing his  thumb  with  the  fingers  of  the 
same  hand  successively.  "I  do  not  un- 
derstand it."  "Why  in  thunder  don't 
you  understand  it  ?  Everybody  round 
here  understands  it,  and  I'll  make  you 
understand  it,  you  dumb  head,  you." 

The  Silent  Man  had  gone  mad.  His 
204 


wife  was  cowering  at  the  window,  the 
children  sobbing  behind  her.  It  was  no 
time  to  run,  even  if  that  had  been  safest. 
So  I  fell  in  with  his  humor,  went  toward 
him,  said  I  might  understand  the  sign  if 
we  could  talk  it  over  in  the  house.  For 
the  wife's  sake  I  took  this  risk.  Asking 
him  to  go  up  stairs  and  get  his  coat,  I  said 
to  the  wife,  "Do  you  know  what  is  the 
matter  with  your  husband  ?  "  "Why,  no. 
Is  anything  particular  the  matter  ?  He's 
been  acting  queer  lately,  but  he's  always 
had  queer  spells."  "Why,  madam,  he  is 
insane  and  dangerous.  You  must  have 
protection."  With  that  she  beckoned  me 
across  the  room  and  pointed  out  three 
bullet  holes  in  the  door.  "He  did  that 
this  morning,"  she  said  ;  "but  he's  been 
firing  his  pistol  around  lately,  and  I  did 
not  think  much  of  it." 

By  this  time  he  had  come  down  with 
his  wife's  bonnet  and  shawl  on,  and  said 
he  was  going  to  town.  We  persuaded 
him  to  take  off  his  things  and  wait  for 
dinner.  I  did  not  wish  to  stay  and  I  did 
not  dare  to  go.  Just  then  the  Mystery 
went  by,  and  I  called  him  in  to  watch 
while  I  telephoned  for  the  First  Select- 
205 


man  and  the  Town  Physician.  The  Mys- 
tery was  no  coward  and  came  promptly  in, 
and  began  his  ceaseless  talk  and  beguiled 
the  maniac  into  something  like  quiet. 

The  doctor's  verdict  was  that  he  must 
go  promptly  to  the  asylum  as  a  very  dan- 
gerous lunatic,  but  the  selectman  must 
act  first. 

Waiting  for  him,  we  began  the  most 
agonizing  watch  I  ever  expect  to  stand. 
While  one  kept  his  eye  on  the  Silent  Man, 
now  reversed  as  to  his  habit  and  talking 
incessantly,  or  beguiled  him  into  another 
room,  I  secreted  his  pistol,  his  clasp  knife, 
and  shotgun.  He  hourly  grew  more  vio- 
lent toward  his  wife,  who  sat  motionless 
in  the  corner,  dazed  with  fear,  and  keep- 
ing the  children  behind  her. 

What  a  task  it  was  to  persuade  her  to 
go  to  the  Mystery's  house  !  She  had 
lived  so  much  alone  that  it  seemed  easier 
for  her  to  face  her  crazy  husband  than  to 
knock  at  a  strange  door.  But  the  Mys- 
tery offered  to  go  with  her,  and  we  had 
less  to  face  when  she  was  gone.  We 
three  stood  watch  in  there  all  day  long 
without  food,  until  it  seemed  that  our 
bedlamite  must  be  asleep  and  one  could 
206 


go  and  get  food  for  all.  I  ate  in  a  mo- 
ment in  my  house  near  by  and  hastened 
back  with  food  for  the  others.  The  door 
opened  ;  this  was  what  I  saw:  the  wife 
had  come  back  with  her  children  and  had 
gone  up  stairs.  There  her  husband  had 
stripped  her,  dressed  her  in  his  own 
clothes,  while  he  put  on  her  hat  and 
shawl.  There  they  sat  at  the  dining 
table,  he  in  a  roaring  frenzy  holding  a 
nauseous  mess  to  her  mouth  and  shout- 
ing, ''Drink,  drink,  or  I'll  kill  you!" 
The  Fisherman  was  holding  him  from  be- 
hind, the  blood  from  the  maniac's  blows 
running  down  the  Fisherman's  face,  but 
holding  him  so  tightly  that  he  could  only 
yell  and  swear.  I  opened  the  door 
toward  the  Mystery's  house.  The  woman 
and  the  children  screaming  ran  for  their 
lives. 

Whereupon  the  crazy  man  quieted 
down  and  ate  up  the  Fisherman's  supper. 
While  he  was  at  this  the  windows  and 
doors  were  locked  up  stairs  except  the 
door  of  one  room.  The  Long  Captain 
coming  in,  we  three  forced  our  charge 
up  stairs  and  locked  him  in. 

For  a  few  moments  all  was  quiet,  and 
(15)  207 


we  thought  it  safe  to  let  the  Fisherman 
and  the  Long  Captain  go  for  help  during 
the  night.  Though  they  went  out  on  tip- 
toe, the  Silent  Man  heard  them  and  in 
an  instant  broke  the  lock  of  his  door.  I 
could  neither  run  nor  wrestle  with  him 
on  the  stairs.  It  was  a  quick  thought  to 
snatch  the  horsewhip  and  be  ready  for 
him  at  the  foot  of  the  stairs.  He  saw  I 
was  there  and  hurled  down  a  tempest  of 
boots,  firewood,  chairs,  and  bureau  draw- 
ers, and  began  to  come  down  himself.  I 
know  I  must  have  been  afraid,  at  least  I 
think  I  was  ;  but  not  too  afraid,  as  he 
had  nothing  in  his  hands,  to  pretend  I 
was  not  and  thrash  the  stairs  with  the 
whip  and  shout,  "I'll  whip  you  within  an 
inch  of  your  life  if  you  come  down."  He 
halted.  That  was  my  time.  Thrashing 
the  air,  I  went  up  two  steps.  He  went 
whimpering  back  to  his  room.  By  this 
time  the  Fisherman  returned,  and  we  bar- 
ricaded the  staircase  with  the  furniture 
thrown  down  until  the  lunatic's  strength 
could  not  force  a  passage. 

So  we  waited  and  watched,  feeling  our 
prisoner  secure. 

It  was  early  evening  and  full  moon,  all 
208 


the  more  brilliant  for  the  sprinkle  of 
snow  which  had  fallen,  when  we  heard  a 
crash,  a  sound  of  feet  on  the  roof,  and 
then  a  thud  on  the  ground.  It  was  only 
a  second  to  the  south  door.  We  caught 
sight  of  the  madman  racing  naked 
through  the  woods  toward  the  Mystery's 
house,  the  Mystery  after  him.  He  out- 
stripped pursuit,  though  chased  by  the 
Fisherman,  the  Long  Captain,  and  myself. 

He  burst  in  the  door,  and  in  that  mo- 
ment shocked  away  forever  the  last  gleam 
of  sense  from  his  wife's  dazed  brain. 
Never  again  was  there  a  sign  of  intelli- 
gence or  interest  in  anything.  He  had 
escaped  by  breaking  the  window,  walking 
over  an  icy  roof,  sliding  down  a  veranda 
post.  When  his  wife  saw  him  there  was 
an  awful  scream,  and  then  mental  death. 

We  were  near  enough  to  prevent  harm. 
Strapping  him  and  roping  him,  we  led 
him  back  to  his  house.  The  outburst 
had  quieted  him.  The  watch  ended  with 
the  morning.  Early  the  selectman  and 
constable  came  with  a  hack  and  bore  him 
away  from  our  bay  forever  to  the  com- 
pany of  the  crazed. 

He  is  still  living,  a  weak  and  muttering 
209 


wreck.     The  wife  is  dead;   the  property 
gone  in  the  education  of  the  children. 

At  the  final  break-up  there  was,  as  is 
often  the  case  in  New  England,  a  vendue, 
or  auction  sale.  Nothing  he  had  could 
bring  cheerful  memories.  But  I  bought 
his  pretty  set  of  chisels,  in  a  neat  box  for 
the  children's  sake.  And  as  I  fashion 
with  these  brilliant  blades  a  toy  or  boat 
for  my  grandchildren  that  dreadful  night 
and  day  come  back.  Nay,  such  an  expe- 
rience needs  no  reminder. 


The  Doorkeeper. 


XIX 

THE    DOORKEEPER. 

HE  was  sitting,  when  I  first 
saw  her,  in  the  doorway  of 
the  little  abandoned  chapel 
in  the  park,  whose  bell  now 
summons  us  from  the  steeple 
of  the  chapel  on  the  beach. 

The  chapel  where  she  sat 
was  built  when  few  came  to 
the  bay,  and  when  the  park 
was  a  wilderness  of  rocks  and  thorns. 
The  clerical  school-teacher  who  built  it 
had  a  good  eye.  The  chapel  sits  loftily 
on  a  ledge  and  must  be  reached  by  rough 
stone  steps.  You  may  see  her  in  one  pic- 
ture sitting  in  the  porch  with  the  cross 
above  her,  her  nurse  in  the  deep  shadow 
of  the  doorway. 

Born,  almost,  with  rheumatism,  she 
could  walk  but  little,  and  to  climb  into  a 
carriage  was  beyond  her.  Sometimes  she 
could  be   lifted   on   her  cushioned  chair 


into  a  business  wagon.  There  were  al- 
ways arms  eager  for  this  task.  But  it 
was  far  easier  for  her  to  travel  in  a  cush- 
ioned wheelbarrow,  as  she  did  the  day  the 
children  escorted  her  on  a  visit  to  Phebe. 

She  was  a  maiden  lady  of  past  fifty, 
from  one  of  the  best  Eastport  families,  and 
still  so  fair  of  face  that  we  wondered 
she  had  lived  alone  until  we  knew  her 
story.  From  youth  her  joints  had 
stiffened.  Sudden  movement  was  ago- 
nizing. Choosing  her  own  way  and  time, 
she  could  walk  a  little,  and  her  crippled 
but  beautiful  hands  were  always  busy 
with  some  kindly  work. 

No  one  could  be  better  company  for 
old  and  young,  being  always  cheerful  and 
sometimes  gay.  Her  laughter  made 
others  laugh.  It  was  so  merry  one  joined 
in  it  without  knowing  why.  Expressions 
chased  each  other  over  mobile  features, 
answering  your  word  before  her  nimble 
but  always  kindly  tongue.  The  children 
and  young  people  said  she  was  "  great." 
The  old  and  the  burdened  loved  to  talk 
with  her  of  the  deep  things  of  God. 
Neat  to  daintiness  always,  she  sometimes 
dressed  in  quiet  elegance. 


She  would  not  let  the  great  world  pass 
her  by.  She  was  a  great  reader  of  pa- 
pers and  books,  reading  from  her  lap 
more  often  than  permitting  them  to  be 
read  to  her.  The  head  Fisherman,  who 
owned  the  chapel,  said  to  me:  "I  don't 
care  whether  she  pays  rent  or  not.  It 
is  pay  enough  to  see  her  there  on  the 
porch."  His  busy  wife,  the  busiest 
woman  I  ever  knew,  always  had  time  to 
cross  the  wire  bridge  to  see  if  the  Door- 
keeper lacked  anything.  But  it  was  hard 
to  give  her  anything.  She  wished  to  pay 
her  own  way,  and  to  avoid  all  kinds  of 
dependence. 

She  knew  the  trees  about  her  as  if  hu- 
man friends,  and  recognized  their  voices 
as  the  wind  whispered  or  roared.  No 
hepatica,  anemone,  Solomon's  seal,  or 
columbine  could  bloom  where  she  did 
not  see  it,  nor  a  bud  swell  without  her 
notice.  The  delicious  light  green  tips 
of  the  growing  hemlock  branches,  the 
brown  of  the  autumn  oaks,  the  new  and 
bearded  pine  tufts,  the  autumnal  yellows 
and  reds  of  the  Virginia  creeper  and  rock 
maples  raised  her  to  ecstasy.  I  have 
heard  her  praise  God  aloud  for  the  beauty 
213 


of  the  rainbow  and  of  the  white  manes  on 
the  inrushing  breakers. 

Her  seat  on  the  porch  gave  her  a  wide 
outlook  over  the  sea.  And  she  knew 
every  skiff  and  catboat.  She  mothered 
all  the  young  folk  who  passed  on  their 
way  to  bathe  or  fish. 

What  she  could  do  for  herself  no  one 
was  permitted  to  do  for  her.  The  full 
strength  and  strongest  hands  of  others 
often  did  less.  She  ought  to  have  been 
fidgety,  cross,  and  morose.  She  suffered 
so  much  we  would  have  forgiven  her  if  she 
had  been.  But  she  was  not.  She  never  lost 
sight  of  the  love  and  beauty  in  the  world. 
She  came  to  the  chapel  before  the  spring 
snows  were  melted,  almost  with  the  first 
bluebird.  She  lingered  until  ice  drove 
the  ducks  from  the  harbor. 

Her  young  heart  nourished  its  youth  on 
the  sounds  and  sights  of  the  sea  and  the 
woods.  The  squirrels  were  intimates. 
The  phcebe  bird  and  the  wren  built  their 
nests  over  her  head.  The  robins  and 
song  sparrows  came  to  her  feet  for  crumbs. 
She  was  no  friend  to  that  handsome 
rascal,  the  blackbird,  who  steals  the  eggs 
of  other  birds.  I  have  seen  Bunny,  the 
214 


brown  rabbit,  run  from  her  visitors,  but 
play  near  her  fearlessly  when  alone. 

The  fishermen  from  the  island  brought 
their  best  to  her,  and  she  thanked  them 
in  such  sort  that  they  wanted  to  come 
again. 

Her  mind  rested  on  the  blessings  she 
had,  not  at  all  on  those  denied  her.  In 
the  ten  years  we  knew  her  she  never  once 
lamented  the  absence  of  anything  from 
her  life.  In  fact  she  never  seemed  to 
lack  anything.  Her  life  was  affluent  in 
pleasure.  Outwardly  of  the  simplest,  she 
had  means  enough  to  live  nicely,  not 
without  diminishing  her  capital.  This 
did  not  trouble  her;  she  only  said,  "God 
will  call  me  before  it  is  all  gone."  And 
He  did. 

That  was  a  great  day,  the  day  of  the 
children  and  the  wheelbarrow.  How 
bright  it  was  with  her  wit  and  laughter! 
She  took  command;  marshaled  the  forces. 
A  small  boy  with  a  colonial  flintlock  gun 
six  feet  long  was  the  advance  guard. 
Then  followed  twro  by  two  others  with 
Korean  jingals  and  Chinese  spears.  The 
girls  came  on  with  a  Chinese  chime  of 
bells,  shengs,  and  trumpets,  and  twang- 
215 


ing  a  Japanese  samisan.  The  older  girls4 
who  helped  her  down  the  stone  steps, 
staggered  with  laughter  as  she  poked 
fun  at  her  infirmities.  Throned  at  last  on 
a  wheelbarrow  easy  with  pillows  and  gay 
with  Indian  blankets,  she  cried,  "  For- 
ward, march !  "  when  shaded  by  an  enor- 
mous Japanese  umbrella. 

The  amazing  din  drew  in  other  small 
boys.  Men  working  on  the  road  pounded 
their  shovels,  some  following  after  with 
their  wheelbarrows.  So  with  thirty  in 
escort  she  was  wheeled  up  the  hill  to  visit 
Phebe,  and  in  the  only  vehicle  she  could 
endure.  "And  all  this,"  she  said,  "to 
help  on  a  crippled  old  woman."  There 
was  no  man,  woman,  or  boy  who  would 
not  have  been  there  to  honor  her  if  they 
had  known  it. 

Not  all  of  us  were  able  to  give  the  rea- 
son for  the  pleasure  we  felt  in  being  near 
her.  The  Fisherman  spoke  for  us  all  in 
saying,  "If  she  should  lose  her  last  pen- 
ny, she  shall  never  lack  anything."  The 
young  girls  talked  over  their  love  matters 
with  her  as  if  she  were  the  mother.  She 
was  as  happy  in  their  happiness  and  as 
pleased  in  seeing  lovers  walking  together 
216 


as  if  she  had  the  joy  herself.  "I  can  tell 
a  girl  who  knows  she  is  loved.  There  is 
a  queenliness — a  conquest  in  her  walk," 
she  said.  Certain  it  is  that  our  fairest 
maidens  were  often  on  her  porch,  nomi- 
nally reading  to  her,  but  more  often  talk- 
ing with  smiles  and  blushes  about  "  him." 
When  I  observed  this  I  better  understood 
why  so  many  wanted  to  go  and  see  the 
Doorkeeper.  The  Doorkeeper  knew  so 
much  and  never  told. 

She  was  not  only  of  the  stuff  of  which 
saints  are  made,  but  already  unconsciously 
a  saint.  She  was  learned  in  the  help  and 
hope  of  the  Christian  faith.  God  was  no 
nearer  to  the  prophets  than  to  her.  She 
told  me  that  when  wakeful  with  pain  God 
was  nearer  in  the  night  than  in  the  day. 
"God,"  she  said,  "cuts  off  his  universe 
in  the  daytime  by  a  curtain  of  light." 
She  asserted  that  God  could  be  more 
easily  seen  in  the  country  than  in  the  city. 
"Man  intrudes  himself  in  the  city,  God 
reveals  himself  in  open  spaces  and  among 
the  trees."  So  she  fearlessly  watched  all 
nature's  tremendous  forces  at  work  :  the 
lightning,  the  gale,  and  the  sea,  confident 
in  her  Father. 

217 


She  had  thought,  not  learnedly,  but 
deeply  and  truly,  on  the  question  of  suf- 
fering. "My  Lord  suffered  more  in  a 
moment  than  I  in  a  lifetime.  So  great  a 
nature  must  have  been  lonely."  Eternal 
life  was  certain  and  full  to  her.  "My 
soul  is  not  crippled,  only  my  body.  I  am 
penned  in  my  chair,  but  my  soul  goes 
everywhere.  My  tongue  is  poorer  than 
my  thought.  When  I  am  released  I  shall 
be  free  for  the  first  time.  So  I  must  fit 
my  spirit  for  the  coming  life.  If  I  can  be 
loving  and  patient  here,  I  shall  have 
something  to  take  with  me  there." 

It  was  rarely  she  would  open  her  heart 
like  this,  and  never  to  one  who  followed 
not  her  Lord.  To  all  others  she  was  just 
a  cheerful,  patient  lady,  interested  in 
everything  and  everybody.  She  knew  a 
struggling  soul  by  intuition,  and  to  such 
talked  freely. 

I  did  not  at  the  time  understand  all 
she  meant  when  she  said,  "God  may 
have  more  discipline  for  me."  Later  on 
we  knew  that  a  cruel  and  mortal  disease 
had  come.  But  then  we  were  talking  of 
the  coming  of  the  spring  after  the  winter 
had  gone.  She  said  quietly,  "I  shall  not 
218 


The  Children  at  the  Doorkeeper' 


be  here  when  the  spring  comes.  I  am  go- 
ing to  the  Fisherman's  house  for  the  win- 
ter. I  want  to  die  here.  But  I  want  to 
stay  in  the  chapel  until  the  cold  drives 
me  out."  All  this  as  cheerfully  as  if  plan- 
ning to  go  to  Oldport  for  the  winter. 

Never  would  she  say  "Good-bye"  to 

anyone.      When    Phebe   and    she    parted 

"with   tears,    as   both    knew   for   the    last 

time,  it  was  only  "Good-day,  dear,  until 

we  meet  again." 

A  month  later  I  came  back  to  the  bay 
for  a  few  hours.  She  was  at  the  Fisher- 
man's, and  lay  near  a  window  where  she 
could  see  the  chapel  and  the  sea.  Pallid, 
wasted,  helpless,  a  great  soul  looked  from 
her  eyes.  She  was  beyond  speech.  But 
her  countenance  was  of  the  mount  with 
God. 

She  was  gone  in  the  spring.  The  win- 
ter's snows  had  not  melted  when  the  eter- 
nal spring  came  to  her. 

Since  then  the  chapel  has  had  no  ten- 
ant. The  Fisherman  does  not  care  to  rent 
it.  To  him,  to  us  all,  it  is  sacred  to  her 
who  often  said,  "I  had  rather  be  a  door- 
keeper in  the  house  of  my  God,  than  to 
dwell  in  the  tents  of  wickedness." 
219 


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